Delegates propose to exempt 1 year of voluntary health insurance premiums for people in flood-affected provinces.

Delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh - Photo: GIA HAN

On the morning of December 2, the National Assembly discussed a draft resolution of the National Assembly on a number of breakthrough mechanisms and policies for the work of protecting, caring for and improving people's health.

And investment policy for the national target program on health care, population and development for the period 2026 - 2035.

The burden of treatment costs remains the biggest barrier for patients.

Delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh (Lam Dong) expressed agreement on policies to expand health care benefits and reduce the financial burden of health care for people in the draft resolution.

She said voters reflected that the burden of treatment costs remains the biggest barrier for patients.

Many new generation drugs - such as targeted therapy drugs, immunotherapy drugs - have proven to be highly effective in treatment, helping to prolong life and improve quality of life. However, high costs prevent many patients from accessing optimal treatment.

Statistics show that medicine costs always account for the highest proportion in the structure of medical examination and treatment costs, currently about 33% (down from 40-50% in previous years).

Therefore, she recommended updating the drug list promptly, especially with cancer treatment drugs and new generation immunomodulators, to reduce people's out-of-pocket expenses, ensuring benefits for more than 95.5 million people participating in health insurance today.

She believes that priority should be given to drugs with strong clinical evidence and clearly proven effectiveness; the list should be updated flexibly and keep up with international medical advances.

At the same time, the expansion of the portfolio is linked to a cost-effectiveness assessment mechanism, ensuring that payments are both fundamental and sustainable.

She proposed that the Party and State pay attention to having special and breakthrough policies to exempt one year of health insurance premiums from the state budget for people participating in voluntary health insurance in provinces directly affected and severely damaged by recent storms and floods.

"Currently, the State has a policy of providing free textbooks to students. Thus, if health insurance is also provided free of charge, social security will be guaranteed and health care for the people will be improved," Ms. Tu Anh suggested.

The delegate pointed out that in the context of rapidly increasing cancer cases, radioactive drugs play an important role. However, great potential is being limited by technical infrastructure bottlenecks. The Dalat reactor is old and has low capacity.

Vietnam still has to depend on importing many important isotopes... At the same time, there is a lack of experts with in-depth experience in all three fields: radiochemistry, radiopharmaceuticals and radiobiology.

She therefore recommended accelerating the construction of a new multi-purpose research reactor to enhance the capacity to produce important isotopes autonomously.

Invest in establishing GMP-standard synthesis centers, focusing on research and technology transfer for synthesizing new generation therapeutic isotopes (such as 68 Ga and 177 Lu).

Develop a specific and flexible legal framework for licensing, production, transportation of radioactive drugs and management of radioactive waste.

Strengthen cooperation with countries with developed nuclear industries (such as Russia, the US, South Korea, Japan, and European countries) to transfer technology for research and production of new radioactive drugs.

At the same time, train a team of high-quality experts to quickly localize products, reduce costs, and contribute to actively and effectively taking care of community health.

Delegate Dang Bich Ngoc - Photo: GIA HAN

Focus on periodic health check-ups for target groups, with priority schedules

Delegate Dang Bich Ngoc ( Phu Tho ) said that it is expected that from 2026, people will receive periodic health check-ups or free screening at least once a year according to priority groups and schedules.

However, in the immediate future, it is necessary to focus on periodic health check-ups by target group and have a priority roadmap in order.

Specifically, the draft resolution should include the first priority group to conduct periodic health check-ups from 2026. Including ethnic minorities in remote, isolated, and particularly difficult areas, poor households, near-poor households, and vulnerable groups...

She suggested that the draft should have clear and specific regulations and a preparation roadmap. Because currently the grassroots health care network in localities is still very difficult and uneven between places and regions in the country.

She cited that when the National Assembly delegation surveyed the implementation of the two-level local government model, they found that commune and ward health stations still had many difficulties in terms of medical staff, doctors, and facilities and equipment that did not meet the requirements for medical examination.

There are machines and equipment that are too old, only for formality to ensure the prescribed criteria but cannot be used, no doctors use them, so it is very wasteful, difficult to meet the initial medical examination and treatment requirements of the people.

Therefore, it is recommended that the Government continue to issue appropriate spending norms and mechanisms and have a roadmap to prioritize investment in human resources and facilities in areas with difficult conditions.

Delegate Duong Khac Mai (Lam Dong) said that the regulations on the roadmap to increase benefits and move towards exempting hospital fees need to specify more clearly the implementation roadmap in stages of 3-5 years, linked to the targets on balancing the health insurance fund and the state budget.

Because reality shows that the need for medical examination and treatment increases rapidly with the aging population and the increase in non-communicable diseases.

The burden of treatment costs remains the biggest barrier for patients.

Focus on periodic health check-ups for target groups, with priority schedules

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