Amended Health Insurance Law 2024, Law No. 51/2024/QH15

Law 51/2024/QH15, passed by the National Assembly on 27 November 2024, amends and supplements several articles of the Law on Health Insurance (Law 25/2008/QH12, as previously amended). The most calculation-relevant change concerns the contribution base. The amended Article 3 provides that the health insurance contribution rate is set as a percentage of the wage used as the base for compulsory social insurance under the Law on Social Insurance (referred to as the monthly wage), or of the pension, allowance, or a newly defined reference level. The Law adds a definition of this reference level (muc tham chieu) as an amount decided by the Government and used to compute the contribution and benefit levels for certain health insurance participants, replacing the previous reliance on the base salary. The Law restructures management responsibilities, assigning duties to the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the Ministry of National Defence and Ministry of Public Security, and People's Committees at provincial and commune levels, including the listing of participants by household and the issuance of health insurance cards for children alongside birth registration. It designates the social insurance agency as the body implementing health insurance policy and managing the health insurance fund, and provides that the State Audit Office audits the fund every three years, with extraordinary audits on request. The Law also revises Article 11 on prohibited acts to address late payment and evasion of health insurance contributions. The amended Article 12 substantially expands and clarifies the categories of participants. The group whose contributions are paid by the employer, the employee, or both now includes employees on indefinite-term or fixed-term contracts of at least one month, including arrangements under different names that have the substance of paid, supervised work; enterprise managers, controllers, and state and enterprise capital representatives, and elected cooperative managers, whether or not they receive a wage; foreign employees on fixed-term contracts of at least 12 months, with stated exceptions; part-time workers whose monthly wage meets or exceeds the lowest compulsory social insurance contribution base; business household owners subject to compulsory social insurance; officials and civil servants; non-specialised commune-level workers; and defence and public security workers. For take-home-pay and contribution calculations, the key elements are the percentage-of-wage contribution structure, the new Government-set reference level for certain groups, and the broadened definition of who must participate. The amendments generally align the health insurance framework with the revised social insurance system.