Healthcare for villagers

If tilting State finance in favor of the needy is what China needs to do in the near future to strive for common prosperity and social harmony, increasing the input in healthcare services for rural residents is definitely the right thing to do.

The Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday that the yearly input in the personal account of new rural cooperative medical insurance will increase from 290 yuan ($46) in 2012 to 340 yuan on average this year, of which the government will pay 280 yuan and individuals the remaining 60 yuan. Even more encouraging is the medical bills for 20 types of serious diseases, including lung cancer and stomach cancer, will be reimbursed by the scheme.

If fully implemented, the scheme will pay for 70 percent of the treatment costs for such diseases, of the remaining costs, the serious disease insurance will cover 50 percent and the civil medical assistance fund another 15 percent, which means rural sufferers of such diseases will pay just 10 percent of their treatment costs.