Over 100m Chinese covered by medical insurance
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-02-26 15:09

A total of 108.95 million people in China had bought medical insurance by the end of last year, a senior labor and social security official said on February 26.

Wang Dongjin, vice-minister of labor and social security, said this is the first time the number of medical insurance policyholders exceeded 100 million in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion.

China's medical insurance market is growing rapidly as China is restructuring its medical system to encourage the development of the commercial insurance market, and expanding market demand.

The vice-minister said an additional 5 million people classified as "flexible employees", or self-employed, bought medical insurance in 81 percent of prefecture-level cities across the country.

A total of 45.73 million employees had bought insurance policies for workshop injuries by the end of last year, up 1.67 million year on year.

The vice-minister said 36.48 million employees have purchased insurance policies for giving birth in 29 provinces by the end of last year, up 1.6 million over the previous year.

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