Source: asiainsurancereview.com

China’s National Healthcare Security Administration, a sub-ministry-level government agency managing China’s public health insurance programmes, published a draft plan to revamp the urban employee basic medical insurance system. That move could directly affect more than 300m urban residents and likely to have implications for commercial health insurers.

The state health insurance system includes two parts. One is for urban employees, funded by money collected directly from workers’ monthly salaries and their employers. A separate system covers the urban unemployed and rural residents and relies heavily on government subsidies because of low personal contributions. Altogether, the system covers nearly 95% of the country’s 1.4bn population, allowing people to get 50%–90% reimbursement of medical spending.

The restructuring initiative marks the first revision of the 22-year-old scheme covering urban employees— one of the key pillars of the country’s state-backed social safety net. Changes discussed for more than a decade will alter how billions of yuan of contributions will be managed and spent, reported Caixin Global. Exact details of key elements remain to be settled and there is still no final implementation date.