The country intends to broaden its current protection to include rural and urban residents by the end of 2015.
China now has intentions to expand its critical illness insurance to the point that it will include all types of diseases within that category, and it will apply to residents of both rural and urban areas.
The goal in the country is to have this new wider insurance coverage in place by the end of the year.
The government recently made this official announcement and stated that the expansion of critical illness insurance is only one of the many steps that it is taking overall in order to repair the health care system across the country. Reuters reported that half of all medical costs for care associated with covered illnesses would be paid through health insurance. The State Council explained that the goal of these changes is to be able to decrease the struggle associated with the medical expenses that residents of the country have been facing.
That said, this critical illness insurance expansion was expected by many, as it has been promised for a while.
President Xi Jinping’s government has been promising that it would broaden the health insurance coverage and create improved access to affordable health care for quite some time. This was a response to the complaints of many people throughout China who have been saying that the low insurance coverage levels have caused them to have to face very high medical expenses.
In fact, there have been reports of bankrupted households as a result of the medical costs that people face following a diagnosis of a critical illness such as cancer or diabetes, within the current design of the Chinese health care system. The State Council intends to widen health insurance in order to “effectively alleviate poverty caused by illness,” and to help to strengthen a universal system of health care within the country.
China has been placing a great deal of focus and investment into health care reform over the last six years. In fact, it is estimated that around $480 billion had already been spent on these system overhauls by the time the decision about expanded critical illness insurance was made.