China will establish a complete rural cooperative medicare system
and poor farmers who have difficulties in seeking medical care will
be subsidized. The system will be in comprehensive operation by
2010.
Minister Zhang Zuoji of Labor and Social Security made the remark
at a news conference Monday in Beijing on the sideline of the 16th
CPC National Congress. The decision was made at a State Council
meeting on rural health held before the Party congress opened,
revealed Zhang. Under the medicare system, each of the farmers, who
have difficulties in seeking medical care, will receive some
subsidies, some from the central government's budgets and some from
local budgets.
Beside the medicare system, China will strive to build a wide
social security network for its big rural population, Zhang
said.
Yet, due to the vastness of the country's territory and the uneven
economic development in different places, China faces a number of
difficulties in establishing a sound social security system in its
countryside.
The household-contract responsibility system, which has been widely
adopted in the rural areas, is based on the traditional concept
that land is the guarantee of rural residents, their livelihood and
security. Yet while China is becoming a country with a great number
of senior people and the family size is becoming smaller, the land
can no longer work well to support those who rely on it, especially
for those elderly. In some economically developed rural areas,
pension insurance has become popular.
The rural old-age pension system was introduced in 1991, but it
still operates on a voluntary basis. The fund is made up mainly of
money contributed by rural individuals, with certain supports from
local communities. Up to now, 60 million farmers have participated
in the pension scheme with an accumulation of 21.5 billion yuan,
and 1.08 million rural residents have been benefited, Zhang pointed
out.
Jiang Zemin's report to the 16th CPC National Congress has made
clear that China will establish systems of old-age pensions,
medical insurance and subsistence allowances in rural areas,
wherever conditions permit. To build a well-off society, the
Ministry of Labor and Social Security is now considering setting up
pension insurance for rural residents who have entered cities for
jobs, those whose land has been made into other uses by the
government, and the residents who have newly transformed from rural
to non-rural registration. The insurance will eventually cover all
the rural population.
During the news conference, Minister Zhang Zuoji also briefed about
the country's labor and social security system as well as the
reemployment situation of laid-off workers. The continuing economic
restructuring will incur mounting unemployment pressure, he said,
but this issue has always been given priority and the government
will take further measures to solve the problems, including
widening the funding channels for social security fund, training
laid-off workers and taking preferential policies, such as tax
exemption and fee reduction, for laid-off workers who try to start
their own businesses.
He
concluded that the market-oriented employment mechanism and the
social security framework compatible with Chinese economy have been
initially established and a series of fundamental historic changes
have taken place in the field of labor and social security after 10
years of reform.
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Guo Xiaohong, November 13,
2002)