On Proposal Of Re-establishment Of Cooperative Medicare Assurance System

Establishment of cooperative medicare assurance system in rural areas offers an institutional solution to the problem of basic medicare assurance and medical treatment difficulties of farmers, It is a fundamental job and a must for the construction of all-round well-off society. During the process of industrialization, urbanization and modernization, China has made great achievements in providing medicare access for farmers who make up a majority of its population by setting up medicare institutes at various levels and actively carrying out cooperative medicare, which was ever hailed as model by most developing countries. However, with the profound changes in social-economic structure and decline of cooperative medicare since 1980s, 90% of farmers have to pay for themselves due to lack of medical security. Recent years, a considerable number of farmers have undergone worsening health. Many of them reduced to or reversed to poverty because of illness, which imposes influence not only on their life but on effectiveness of China's poverty-alleviating strategy. Farmers' health is an important issue,deserving no ignorance. The author introduces the formation, development as well as present situation of cooperative medicare system in China's rural areas, analyzes on an all-round basis the influences of and reasons for its decline, and puts forward the proposal of its re-establishment. Owing to the low economic level in most rural areas, farmers' medical security can't be integrated into medicare insurance system at moment, nor can be guaranteed by the government and collective organizations. Instead, it can be realized only through mutual helping and mutual relieving among farmers. The author proposes the basic thoughts for restructuring cooperative medicare system as regard to guiding concepts, principles, frameworks, organization and management, and elaborates in some detail on the measures such as establishing fund-raising system which requires joint investment from government, collective organizations and individuals, making major illness assurance as a key point, reasonably compensating farmers' medical expenses, improving health service system in rural areas, and rationally allocating medicare resources, etc.