Meanwhile, 291,000 people have bought voluntary social insurance andhealth insurance has covered 86 percent of the country’s population, exceedingthe target assigned by the Government by 30 percent.
To encourage people to join voluntary social insurance, the governmentwill offer a premium discount of 10-20 percent to poor people depending ontheir circumstances from January 1, 2018.
VSS Deputy General Director Pham Luong Son said that the VSS rankssecond among 20 ministries and sectors pioneering in applying informationtechnology in operations.
It has operated an IT centre and a customer service centre to receivefeedback from customers and deal with their complaints.
The VSS plans to issue electronic health insurance cards for customersto reduce administrative procedures and save time.
Son said that social insurance debts in 2017 are estimated at 5.73trillion VND (253 million USD), down 0.8 percent compared to 2016., saying thatthe new regulations on applying criminal punishment to insurance evasion casesfrom the beginning of 2018 is expected to be effective in reducing debts.
At the conference, the VSS also set major targets for 2018, including developinga database of the sector and completing an online public service system.-VNA