China's rural medical care system will cover more than 80 percent counties, said Premier Wen Jiabao at the opening meeting of the Fifth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on Monday.

"The trial area of the new type of rural cooperative medical care system will be expanded this year to cover over 80 percent of all counties, county-level cities and city districts in China. Areas possessing the proper conditions may expand the trial faster than others," said Wen in the government work report delivered to 2,890 NPC deputies at the annual session of the top legislature.

The allocations from the central government budget to subsidize this trial will amount to 10.1 billion yuan (1.3 billion U.S. dollars) this year, a 5.8 billion yuan (750 million U.S. dollars) year-on-year increase, according to the government work report.

NPC deputy Li Changshui, a village head from Hunan Province, said the move shows the strong commitment and resolution of the central government in improving the lagging-behind rural health service system in the approach to build a new socialist countryside.

Under the new cooperative medical care program launched in 2003, a farmer participant pays 10 yuan (1.3 U.S. dollars) a year, while the state, provincial, municipal and county governments jointly put in another 40 yuan (5.2 U.S. dollars) for the cooperative fund.

The participant can have part of his expense reimbursed in case he is hospitalized. The rate of reimbursement varies according to different kinds of illness and the actual cost of medical expenses incurred.

Rural Chinese people used to have access to subsidized health clinics run by "barefoot doctors", who were mainly middle school graduates trained in first aid. This service, essentially free, helped almost double the country's average life expectancy from 35 years in 1949 to 68 years in 1978.

When China began its economic reform in the early 1980s, the old system was ended as the country attempted to switch to a market-oriented health care system. But the government failed to establish a viable substitute, leaving almost 90 percent of the rural population without health insurance, according to the Ministry of Health.

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