Health cover funding plan will help 10m poor people
Ant Financial will link up with China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation
Ant Financial Services Group will help provide health insurance for up to 10 million Chinese people living in poverty.
The major e-payment provider and financial arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has joined forces with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation to ease financial hardship by 2020.
“We expect this to cover 10 million people from poor families in the country,” said Sun Lijun, vice-president of Alibaba.
Last month, Ant Financial and Alibaba platforms launched an online fundraising program. So far, they have received nearly 875,000 yuan ($130,000) in donations.
But they eventually hope to raise millions of yuan from the general public, companies and organizations during the next three years.
The China Foundation will then buy health insurance for people between the ages of 20 to 60 from poverty-stricken regions.
“This program (in association with insurance companies) will ease the burden of disease in poor and remote areas and fight poverty,” said Xia Gengsheng, an official from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.
Already a similar online funding program from Ant Financial and Alibaba has 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.
This program will ease the burden of disease in poor remote areas.” Xia Gengsheng, an official from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development