Health cover funding plan will help 10m poor people
helped provide health insurance for 76,528 low-income workers in Xishui county, Guizhou province, in the past six months.
This was put together under the guidance of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, and the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Technology developed by Ant Financial to enhance transparency will show donors where every single yuan will go.
Duan Yingbi, director of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, stressed that the program is aimed at providing exclusive healthcare insurance for workers in poor rural and remote areas.
“It will work alongside the existing healthcare system and play a significant role in alleviating poverty caused by diseases,” Duan said.
China has lifted nearly 700 million people out of poverty during the past 30 years. In 2016, another 12.4 million rural residents escaped a subsistence-level existence.
“But there are still 43.3 million people living below the poverty line of 2,300 yuan in annual income,” the National Bureau of Statistics stated.
The plan is to eradicate poverty in rural and remote regions of China by 2020.
In 2006, Alibaba and the China Foundation started working together to ease the plight of the poor.
“Love Parcel”, which was launched in 2012 by the online group, raised 117 million yuan for more than 1.1 million primary school students in areas suffering hardship.
Zhuang Qiange contributed to the story.