100 million migrant workers to get new healthcare service

Speakers: Wu Manling, Sam Duckett and Lu Sirui

The social security card issued by the Chinese government. [photo: from dfic.cn]

More than 100 million migrant workers are estimated to benefit from the central government's campaign to expand off-site medical settlement, a move that helps get their medical bills reimbursed more easily when they go to hospital in non-native places.

This was part of the decisions made at a State Council executive meeting earlier to further integrate reimbursement systems and facilitate patients nationwide.

According to a statement released after the meeting, all provinces and regions had been integrated into the nation's system of off-site medical settlement by the end of September.

The upgraded network covers all participants for basic medical insurance in urban areas and the new-type rural cooperative medical care for rural residents. More than 6,000 designated hospitals are connected under the program. However, thousands of others have still to be linked.

Each province, autonomous region or municipality previously had an independent system for medical reimbursement, making it extremely difficult for people working in other places to enjoy their legitimate rights for reimbursement.

The audio clip is from Studio+, produced by CRI.