Make serious illness insurance work

Several authority ministries say serious-illness insurance will pay more than 50 percent of patients' medical costs in the future, which is undoubtedly good news for Chinese people, says an article in Beijing News Daily. Excerpts:

Many families are exhausting their savings paying medical bills to treat family members' serious illnesses. Some even become hopelessly buried in debt because of the serious illness. A patient's illness finally becomes a disaster for the whole family.

Therefore, it is quite necessary for the country to make this badly needed insurance work, and bring real benefits to patients.

The authority says it should manage and invest the surplus of medical-insurance funds, turning the dead money into live money, so insurance will not burden patients with extra payments.

If the whole project works well, insurance coverage can be carried further.

The serious-illness insurance also provides a good opportunity for commercial insurance agencies to participate in the public-service sector and help the authority make the best use of the surplus money.

But this profitable market and the whole process should be well-designed, regulated and supervised, to avoid corruption and embezzlement.

The ministries' declaration is only a good beginning of the whole project, which actually demands more specified action plans to balance the relations and assign jobs among central and local authorities, hospitals, commercial insurance agencies and patients.