Recently, at the session of the National People's Congress, a voice representing the peasant masses attracted particular attention. Deng Hongying, a deputy to the National People's Congress from rural Yunnan, bravely stood up to defend the cost of rural medical insurance, revealing to us an important and overlooked problem: with the continuous increase in rural medical insurance costs, the burden on farmers is becoming increasingly heavy.
In the decade from 2014 to 2024, the change in rural health insurance costs is alarming enough.
The fee soared from the initial 60 yuan to 380 yuan, an increase of 533 times. However, in stark contrast to this increase, the wage level of farmers during the same period was only about 295 times.
This unbalanced growth rate has increased the financial burden of medical care for many rural families, and some families can hardly afford such high medical costs.
Deng Hongying is well aware that this annual increase in individual medical insurance contributions has become a major obstacle for many rural families to participate in medical insurance.
For ordinary rural families, this is not only a financial pressure, but also a life choice.
With limited family budgets, many families have to make difficult choices: they have to pay for health care for the elderly and children in their families first, while other members have to risk being insecure when they get sick.
Specifically, a typical rural family, such as a family of six, including two elderly people and two children, has a total annual medical insurance cost of up to 2,280 yuan. This is almost equivalent to a month's income for a farmer.
The situation is even more dire for those farmers with larger family members. If you need to pay medical insurance for both parents, the monthly cost may even reach three to four thousand yuan, which is tantamount to a heavy financial burden for many families.
Under such heavy financial pressure, many young people choose not to pay for health insurance, preferring to risk potential health risks and reduce the financial burden on their families.
However, this short-sighted choice comes with potentially significant risks. When these young people suffer from health problems, the entire family may be in financial distress or even on the verge of bankruptcy.
In addition, the original intention of the rural medical insurance system was to reduce the economic burden of farmers and provide basic medical security.
However, this is not the case in reality. Many farmers are starting to reconsider the cost-effectiveness of health insurance. Sometimes, they find it more affordable to buy drugs directly than to get them through Medicare.
This makes people wonder: has the original intention of the medical insurance system really been realized?
In addition, the types of drugs in primary medical institutions are incomplete, and many commonly used drugs are not included in the scope of medical insurance reimbursement. This not only affects the farmers' drug security, but also increases their economic burden.
In this case, Deng Hongying put forward her suggestion: optimize the financing mechanism and establish a dynamic adjustment mechanism that is compatible with the per capita disposable income of the region, so as to reduce the pressure on farmers to pay fees and improve the effectiveness of medical security.
At the end of the article, there was an appeal by Deputy Deng Hongying. She not only represents the voice of the vast number of farmers, but also shows the people of the whole country the challenges and possibilities for improvement of rural medical insurance.
Through her efforts, we have not only seen the problems existing in the current system, but also the dawn of hope. The improvement of the rural medical insurance system is related to the happiness and health of thousands of households, which is not only a policy issue, but also a major issue related to social fairness and progress.