China to launch massive healthcare reform
Apr. 8, 2009 (China Knowledge) - The Chinese government Monday released guidelines for healthcare reform over the next decade, starting the long-awaited reform to ensure fair and affordable health care services for its 1.3 billion people.
The guidelines aims to establish a basic health-care system to cover all Chinese citizens, and build public health and medical service systems by the year of 2020.
The reform will put disease prevention first, place rural areas on its priority, put equal emphasis on both western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and require much more government funding and supervision, according to the guidelines.
By the year of 2010, the financial subsidy for basic medical insurance for urban residents and the cooperative medical services for rural residents will be increased to RMB 120 per capita, and the ratio of people covered by the basic medical insurance is estimated to exceed 90% by 2011.
China earlier announced that it will invest RMB 850 billion in the next three years in the healthcare reform.
Copyright 2009 www.chinaknowledge.com
Send feedback or comments to: news@chinaknowledge.com
For more news, financial weekly reports, business guides to China and other premium information, subscribe to China Knowledge today:
To access our page on Bloomberg, type CKFI