State Council expands access to public health insurance in megacities
Millions of people are about to be granted urban health insurance.
On Thursday, the State Council released a policy on building a sustainable enrollment mechanism for public health insurance.
- ICYMI, the State Council approved the policy at a June executive meeting.
The big news: Megacities – like Beijing and Shanghai – must give migrant workers and their kids access to basic medical insurance (BMI) schemes – just like their fellow urbanites – even if they don't have local urban residence permits (hukou) (Gov.cn 1).
- The country's biggest cities are the last to maintain such restrictions.
For context: Around 79% of Shanghai's residents were enrolled in the city's BMI scheme in 2022 – which is 16 percentage points lower than the national average (Gov.cn 2).
- That means around four million people will be added to Shanghai's scheme under the new policy.
The policy also pledges to cut out-of-pocket medical costs by increasing the reimbursement ratio for outpatient expenses.
Get smart: Expanding the social safety net like this won’t boost demand as quickly as direct wealth transfers to households.
- Still, it should make folks feel less reticent about loosening their purse strings in the medium term.