The rising cost of rural medical insurance has attracted the attention of Deng Hongying, a deputy to the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress. She noted that over the past decade,The cost of rural medical insurance has soared from 60 yuan in 2014 to 380 yuan in 2024, an increase of 533 times. However, the level of wages in the past ten years** is only 295 times, forming a huge increase gap. As a result of this trend, many farmers cannot afford to pay for their pensions.
Deng Hongying pointed out that the individual payment of medical insurance for urban and rural residents has been increasing year by year, which has a serious impact on the enthusiasm of participating in medical insurance payment. The amount of contributions has become a heavy expense for rural households, and some families have to pay selectively.
In rural areas, the elderly often do not have a pension and gradually lose their livelihood as they age. As a result, the cost of health care is often borne by the child. Take a small family of three as an example, plus a total of five parents, each of them pays 380 yuan, a total of 1,900 yuan. For many rural families, this is equivalent to the entire income of five acres of wheat, when in reality, many rural families now have only one or two acres of land per person.
While $380 may not seem like much for a person, in a family of five or six people, it adds up to a considerable expense.
Ms. Deng's concerns are not limited to skyrocketing costs. She also pointed out that the lack of medical service guarantee and the rapid growth of medical expenses are also one of the reasons for the reduction of the enthusiasm of the masses to pay. The lack of commonly used medicines in primary care facilities has forced patients to go to outside pharmacies to buy medicines at their own expense. Unlike the urban medical insurance card, the 380 yuan fee for rural joint treatment is almost unusable without hospitalization, and it needs to be repaid every year and cannot be accumulated.
Deng Hongying's voice conveys the voice of ordinary people, and she hopes that leaders and experts will take this issue seriously and think more about the people. A single 380 yuan may not be much, but for ordinary people, the burden of multiple 380 yuan is indeed a lot of pressure. There is an urgent need to think carefully about the cost of health care in rural areas to ensure that health care is accessible and affordable.