Li Tao, deputy director of the National Health Insurance Bureau, made it clear at the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism news conference that, after the conditional listing, the new crown vaccine free of charge in the residents of the informed and voluntary premise, the enterprise provides vaccine costs at the agreed price; plus all the costs of the inoculation services and so on, will be borne by the medical insurance fund and the financial **** with the burden of the residents of the individual does not bear the burden.
It is worth noting that the health insurance fund is used in the rolling balance of the health insurance fund, does not affect the current income and expenditure of the health insurance fund, and will not affect the treatment of the insured to see a doctor.
Previously, the domestic public reflected in the emergency vaccination process, was charged, Zeng Yixin said the State Council has been issued in the name of the State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism Comprehensive Group, requiring immediate rectification.
Domestic vaccines can be divided into a class of seedling and two types of seedling according to different payers. Class I vaccines, or national immunization program vaccines, are provided by the government free of charge to citizens, including hepatitis B vaccine and BCG vaccine for infants and young children; Class II vaccines are other vaccines voluntarily administered by residents, such as influenza vaccine.
The National Immunization Program (NIP) meets at least once a year to discuss whether to update the Class I vaccine, as well as the adjustment and optimization of the original vaccine use procedures. But the final decision needs to be based on a combination of public ****health needs, finances, public ****health implementation capacity, vaccine accessibility and other aspects of the adjustment program.
Previously, the expenditure on Class I vaccines did not involve the health insurance fund, but was spent directly by the treasury. There have been discussions between NPC deputies and the government level about whether the new crown vaccine should be paid for by the health insurance fund. Some NPC deputies suggested that the new crown vaccination be included in the full reimbursement of medical insurance, but in October 2020, the State Medical Insurance Bureau replied to this, "The current basic medical insurance system is still based on providing basic disease treatment protection for the masses, and focusing on meeting the basic medical needs of the masses, and does not have the ability to expand the scope of payment to non-therapeutic items, such as vaccines. "
However, another problem is that if this new crown vaccine if completely paid by the Treasury, or will cause greater financial pressure.
According to the previous "Anhui Province Emergency Use of New Coronavirus Vaccine Emergency Procurement Negotiation Announcement," Anhui Province purchased new coronavirus inactivated vaccine from Beijing Kexing Zhongwei, Beijing Institute of Biological Products, and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products at a purchase price of 200 yuan per vial or branch.
Based on a domestic population of 1.39 billion, the new coronavirus vaccine procurement spending alone will exceed 550 billion yuan if future vaccine purchase price reductions are not taken into account. That doesn't even take into account the cost of delivering the vaccines and the labor costs incurred when injecting them.
But according to the 2019 Statistical Bulletin on the Development of China's Health and Wellness Program released by the National Health Commission, the total health costs in 2019 exceeded 6.5 trillion yuan, of which the government's health expenditures amounted to about 1.74 trillion yuan. If the new crown vaccine expenditure is all through government health expenditure, it may squeeze other parts of health expenditure.
And the rolling balance of the health insurance fund mentioned by Tao Li at a news conference on the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism (JPCM) is the cumulative sum of the health insurance fund balance over the years.
According to the 2019 Statistical Snapshot on the Development of the Medical Security Career released by the National Health Insurance Bureau earlier, the accumulated balance of the basic health insurance fund in 2019 amounted to 269.211 billion yuan. Previously, the excessive balance of the medical insurance fund was considered by some scholars to be a deviation from the principle of "balancing income and expenditure with a slight surplus", which is prone to "misappropriation impulse".
But in the past two years, the basic health insurance fund financing growth (19.3% and 9.1%) has been lower than the growth of expenditure (23.6% and 11.9%), the health insurance fund expenditure pressure increases, the balance of the fund will be affected in the future is still not known.
Additionally, some scholars have previously expressed concern about whether the direct inclusion of the new crown vaccine in the national immunization program will affect the return of funds for vaccine companies, ultimately leading to a lack of motivation and investment in research and development in the future.
Li Tao said at the conference on the same day that with the continuous expansion of the production scale and vaccination scale of the new crown of the new crown vaccine, as well as the increasing number of products on the market, the price will also change accordingly. "Relevant government departments will also take measures to develop a corresponding price formation mechanism to channel the price of the new crown vaccine into an economic and reasonable range."