China eyes completing health care reforms by 2020

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

BEIJING, April 6 (Reuters) - The Chinese government aims to complete landmark health care reforms by 2020 to ensure safe and affordable coverage for its more than one billion citizens, state media said on Monday.

Beijing has already announced that it will spend about 850 billion yuan ($124.4 billion) on the initial stage of the programme up to 2011, though it has yet to spell out how much of that would be new spending or disclose details of the reforms.

"By 2020, China will have a basic health care system that can provide safe, effective, convenient and affordable health services to urban and rural residents," the official Xinhua news agency said in a synopsis of a policy document on the reforms.

"The core principle of the reform is to provide basic health care as a 'public service' to the people, which requires much more government funding and supervision," it added.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP395394

[area51]

1. As usual, the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world. (n/t)