title: Moving toward universal coverage of health insurance in Vietnam: barriers, facilitating factors, and lessons from Korea.
abstract: Vietnam has pursued universal health insurance coverage for two decades but has yet to fully achieve this goal. This paper investigates the barriers to achieve universal coverage and examines the validity of facilitating factors to shorten the transitional period in Vietnam. A comparative study of facilitating factors toward universal coverage of Vietnam and Korea reveals significant internal forces for Vietnam to further develop the National Health Insurance Program. Korea in 1977 and Vietnam in 2009 have common characteristics to be favorable of achieving universal coverage with similarities of level of income, highly qualified administrative ability, tradition of solidarity, and strong political leadership although there are differences in distribution of population and structure of the economy. From a comparative perspective, Vietnam can consider the experience of Korea in implementing the mandatory enrollment approach, household unit of eligibility, design of contribution and benefit scheme, and resource allocation to health insurance for sustainable government subsidy to achieve and sustain the universal coverage of health insurance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Ngan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2153-4904
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Do
authors.affiliation: JW Lee Center for Global Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Juhwan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0784-5108
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. ; Institute of Health Policy and Management, Medical Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jin-Seok
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4329-0784
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D004608:Eligibility Determination; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000191:economics*; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D019472:Universal Health Insurance / Q000191:economics*; D014744:Vietnam
keywords: Facilitating Factors; Insurance, Health; Korea, Vietnam; Universal Coverage