(VOVworld) – Vietnam has made progress in expanding social health insurance, now covering more than half of its population.

According to the recent World Bank report “Moving toward Universal Health Coverage of Social Health Insurance in Vietnam”, thanks to higher government spending in healthcare, the insurance program, which was piloted in 1989, has boosted the number of people with health coverage. In 2010, nearly 60 percent of Vietnamese had health insurance, up from 10 percent in the early 1990s. The report also recommends reforms in several areas including increasing coverage through premium subsidies, greater family enrollment and enforcement of enrollment compliance, improving equity and financial protection by cutting down on extra charges, and introducing catastrophic cost coverage.