Accordingly, employee (with no exception of Foreigner working in Vietnam) and their relatives are subject to compulsory participation in health insurance.

1. Foreigner who works under labor/employment contract with 03 full months or over for agencies, units, organizations and businesses:
• Enterprise established and operated under the Enterprise Law & Investment Law;
• Co-operatives, unions of cooperatives established and operated under the Law of Cooperatives;
• State agencies, business units, armed forces, political organizations, socio-political organizations, socio-professional organizations and social-professional & social organizations or other Assembly;
• Agencies, foreign or international organizations in Vietnam, with exception of regulation of international Treaties the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has signed;
• Any organizations employing labor established and operated under the provisions of the law.

The above are subjects of compulsory participation in health insurance. The insurance premium & payment method are as:

• HI Premium:
• From October 1st 2009 health insurance premium accounts for 3% of monthly salary stated in the labor contract. The amount is divided by 2% paid by Employer & 1% by Employee. Maximum salary employed to calculate the premium of health insurance is 20 times of common minimum wage (currently at 650,000 VND x 20 = 13 million VND)
• From January 1st 2010 health insurance premium accounts for 4.5% of monthly salary stated in the labor contract. The amount is divided by 3% paid by Employer & 1.5% by Employee. Maximum salary employed to calculate the premium of health insurance is 20 times of common minimum wage.
• Payment method: The employer is responsible for paying and deducting health insurance premium of their employees from pay slips and company fund to submit to the government fund monthly.
• Similarly, in the spirit of the Health Insurance Law and the mentioned above documents, their relatives are participation in Health Insurance Law as part (2)

However, up to now the local agencies do not have any guidelines or enquiry statements to call for health insurance participation of agencies, units, organizations businesses and foreign individuals. Moreover, they have not identified the case of whether relatives of foreign employee is suject of health insurance law and what conditions are for their participation.

2. Relative of employee as stipulated in Clause 23, Article 12 of the Health Insurance Law:
• Relatives of the employee stipulated in Clause 23, Article 12 of HI Law was clearly defined in the Circular 09/2009/TTLT-BYT-TC are: parents, parents-in-law, foster parents, children or those employee responsible for nurturing or live under the same roof.
• Enacting date for participation of employee’s relatives in health insurance is January 1st 2014
• Health insurance premium is 3% on common minimum wage and paid by employee
• Payment method: The employee is responsible for declaring a list of his/her relatives and submitting to employer for registration and acquiring of health insurance cards. Base on employee‘s declaration, employer deduct HI premium from employee’s salary to submit for HI fund of government monthly.
• Deduction of health insurance premium applied for relatives are regulated specifically in Clause 6, Article 3 of Decree 62/2009/ND-CP and Point b, Clause 3, Article 2 of Circular 09/2009/TTLT-BYT-TC is as:
• The 1st person is fully charge with HI premium (100% x 3% x common minimum wage)
• The 2nd one is charged with 90% of the 1st (90% x 3% x common minimum wage)
• The 3rd one is charged with 80% of the 1st (80% x 3% x common minimum wage)
• The 4th one is charged with 70% of the 1st (70% x 3% x common minimum wage)
• The 5th person & onwards is charged with 60% of the 1st (60% x 3% x common minimum wage)
3. Premium and payment method for special cases are as:
   • If an employee concurrently belongs to many groups of participation subjects defined in Article 12 of the HI Law, he/she will belong to the first group sorted by priority specified in Article 12 of the HI Law.
   • If an employee acquires one or more labor contracts which are undefined or defined with over 03 months, he/she will be charged by the contract with highest value.

The State policy intends to expand health insurance toward public healthcare and cater to the healthcare needs of Employee’s relatives. It helps ensure risk-sharing among health insurance participants including Employee.

Reference Source: 1 | 2 | 3