By Shangguan Zhoudong (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-08-08 11:47

Jiangsu's Mr Xu, a cerebral thrombosis sufferer, lives in his son's home in Beijing, but he must pay medical expenses himself because his medical insurance in Jiangsu is unavailable in the capital city.

Xu tried to transfer his medical insurance from Jiangsu to Beijing, but the local medical insurance authority rejected his requirements as no regulations to abide by. Eventually he had to return back to Jiangsu.

Statistics show that by the end of 2005, there were close to 144 million people over the age of 60 in China, accounting for 11 percent of the entire population.

Some of them want to live with children in other provinces but they must face the embarrassment of life without medical insurance.

At present, about 6 percent of wages of employers and 2 percent of personal wages are required to be paid with medical insurance premiums. Part of the insurance premiums from employing units goes into the mutual assistance program, and the rest goes to the employees' personal accounts. The personal insurance premiums go entirely to personal accounts.

The mutual assistance funds and personal accounts are used to pay for different types of medical costs.

But the medical insurance system is limited by cities. Considering local interests, some local governments are unwilling to cover retired immigrant workers' medical expenses, according to Han Keqing, associate professor of Social Security Research Center of China under the Renmin University of China.

Zheng Bingwen, head of the Institute of Latin American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Science, said imbalanced economic development in China results in situations in which some developed regions are unwilling to accept retired workers from other places.

Some insiders and experts suggested the establishment of a nation-level medical insurance solution, but Zheng said the time is not ripe to establish a national medical insurance system due to the economic imbalance among different regions.