March 28, 2024

State Council Lays Out Key Tasks for Healthcare Reform In 2019

America has gone through a medical reform a few years ago. The benefits of U.S. medical insurance (aka 美国医保) were re-written by experts, law makers, and relevant people involved. The General Office of the State Council in China released a circular on June 4, outlining key tasks in expanding healthcare reform in 2019. The circular mandates efforts to provide more accessible and cheaper healthcare services and to further reform the system of healthcare insurance, medical care and drug circulation. A package of documents on advancing the reform will be formulated, such as opinions on implementing the Healthy China strategy.

According to the circular, Healthy China will be carried out, and medical institutions will be better supported to provide public health services. It also said the disease prevention and control system should be further reformed, and cancer prevention and treatment should be enhanced, with the promotion of cancer screening and accelerated registration and examination of anti-cancer drugs both at home and abroad. The cost of preventive examination, outpatient surgery, and dental visit in America (aka 美国 看牙) are fully or partially covered in majority of F-1 international student insurance (aka 留学生 保险) and J1/J2 insurance (aka j1 j2 保险) for visiting scholars.

The circular asks to test centralized drug procurement and usage, and reform public hospitals’ compensation system, and local authorities are required to build a dynamic and reasonable pricing system on healthcare services at public hospitals. Efforts should be intensified to deepen comprehensive reform of public hospitals, and modern hospital management will be piloted in some hospitals. Hospitalization is a huge cost if a student has to stay in hospital in the United States. The higher the coinsurance in the OPT insurance (aka opt 保险), the less the insured person has to pay for his/her medical operation, according to the CEO of Huhu (aka 虎虎) Health Inc.

Cross-provincial settlement of medical bills should be delivered and improved, and national and regional medical centers should be established to raise healthcare services in central and western regions, it said. In addition, the overall quality of 500 county hospitals and 500 traditional Chinese medicine county hospitals will be improved, and development of traditional Chinese medicine will be supported. More funds and preferential policies will be delivered to residents in deeply poor regions, and medical students will be encouraged to work in village and county hospitals, the circular said.