China's basic medical insurance covers over 1.3b people in first 5 months

China's basic national medical insurance covered 1.319 billion people from January to May, an increase of 4.69 million compared to the same period last year, the National Healthcare Security Administration said on Thursday.

The number of people covered by the employee insurance program — mainly involving urban employees — grew by 7.16 million year-on-year to 386 million while the number of those enrolled in the resident's program largely for rural residents and migrant workers fell by 2.46 million to 923 million.

"This simultaneous rise and fall reflect a continued optimization of the nation's insurance participation structure, and stability of the medical insurance fund," said Wang Guodong, an official from the administration.

During the five-month period, the national fund received 1.61 trillion yuan ($236.6 billion) in income, up 4.89 percent year-on-year, and spent a total of 1.21 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.12 percent from a year earlier.

Regarding the development of the nation's long-term care insurance program, Liu Juan, an official from the administration, said that 17 provincial-level regions have released regional implementation plans and a total of 320 million people have enrolled in the insurance scheme so far.