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China has built up the world's largest social security system: Official
CGTN
A social security card of Chinese residents is displayed. /CFP

A social security card of Chinese residents is displayed. /CFP

China has established the world's largest social security system during the past five years, with basic medical insurance covering more than 1.3 billion people and basic pension insurance covering nearly one billion people, according to the official website of the State Council on Friday.

The official data shows that 1.36 billion Chinese have been included in the national basic medical insurance, which means 95 percent of Chinese can get reimbursement when they go to the hospital.

In 2019, about 70 to 80 percent of hospitalization expenses were reimbursed by medical insurance. And the proportion of residents' expenditure in the total medical expenditure dropped from 35.29 percent in 2010 to 28.36 percent in 2019.

A 2019 report by the State Council indicated that the main health indicators of Chinese residents are better than the average level of high-income countries. The report cited The Lancet, a medical journal which researched the medical quality and accessibility of 195 countries and regions, shows that China makes great progress in terms of the two indicators during the past 25 years: In 1995, China ranked 110, 60 in 2015 and 48 in 2016.

Aside from the medical insurance, the number of people included in the pension, unemployment, and work-related injury insurance by the end of 2020 has reached 999 million, 217 million, and 268 million, respectively.

The total number of people covered by the basic pension insurance system accounts for one-third of the global population covered by the pension insurance system, the largest pension system in the world, according to officials. 

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