Regions add fertility treatment in basic health insurance to boost population

The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Friday that 27 provincial-level regions have included fertility treatment in their basic health insurance as part of efforts to tackle an aging society and promote long-term and balanced demographic development.

The administration added that the average time it takes to complete insurance registration for newborns has been reduced from 28.7 to 6.4 working days and the period for processing maternity subsidies has been cut to 10 working days.

From January to September, the nation's maternity insurance fund spent 89.3 billion yuan ($12.5 billion) in total, up by 11.5 percent year-on-year, it said.

The nation's basic healthcare insurance fund spent 1.76 trillion yuan from January to September, up by 10.5 percent from the same period of last year. The growth rate exceeded that of the GDP by 5.7 percentage points.

As of the end of September, about 376 million people had enrolled in the national basic insurance program for employees, up by 2.4 percent year-on-year.