Reform to relieve people of worries about medical bills

The national plan to extend medical insurance to cover all critical illnesses for urban and rural residents who are part of the basic urban medical insurance and rural cooperative medical program will hopefully prevent households from going bankrupt because of the high costs of treatment for serious diseases.

The State Council document announcing the plan, which was issued on Sunday, says 50 percent of the medical costs for critical illnesses will be covered by insurance.

Some may wonder whether residents will have to pay extra premiums to benefit from the change. But the answer is no, because the government will use part of the medical insurance people have paid to buy insurance from companies to cover the costs of treatment.