New medical body to boost healthcare
Administration aims to improve funding, policies and supervision
The newly founded National Medical Security Administration, unveiled in Beijing on Thursday, is expected to help boost medical security and improve the nation’s overall health.
Hu Jinglin, head of the administration and a former vice-minister of finance, said at the unveiling ceremony that the administration will enable the government to more effectively ensure medical security and promote healthcare reform.
Major tasks of the administration include drafting and implementing policies and regulations on medical insurance and medical Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Former National Health and Family Planning Commission relief, supervising and managing medical insurance funds, and supervising and managing medical services covered by medical insurance and the costs incurred.
Those duties had been spread among several central government departments, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the now defunct National Health and Family Planning Commission.
“Due to the lack of effective supervision of medical insurance funds, many hospitals and patients covered by insurance programs tend to spend more and have unnecessary or excessive medical care, which causes waste in funding,” said Li Ling, an economics professor at Peking University’s National School of Development, who focuses on China’s healthcare reform.
It is worth noting that the head of the administration is from the Finance Ministry, which suggests heavier financial support for the health insurance fund in the future to improve its security, Li said. Basic medical insurance programs in China are heavily reliant on government investment, rather than the collection of premiums from individuals, she said.
More than 95 percent of China’s population is covered by basic medical insurance programs, the world’s largest medical insurance network, although improvement still needs to be made to insurance payments for groups such as rural residents, according to the National Health Commission.
Health authorities in China have taken a series of measures in recent years to control the rapid increase of medical expenditures due to causes such as an aging population, including bringing down prices of drugs sold at hospitals by abolishing the price markups public hospitals previously practiced for decades.