Zheng Gongcheng, a deputy to the National People's Congress and president of the Chinese Society of Social Security, who attended this session of the National People's Congress, suggested that a medical security law should be formulated as soon as possible to establish a nationwide unified medical insurance system that covers the whole people. Zheng Gongcheng believes that the goal of the reform of the medical insurance system is not how much money is saved in the personal account of the medical insurance, but to play the role of mutual assistance and mutual help, so that all people will not become poor due to illness, return to poverty due to illness, and not affect the quality of life due to illness.
Although the current Social Insurance Law has made relevant provisions on medical security in Chapter III "Basic Medical Insurance", due to the provisions in principle and the fact that the law was formulated in 2010, some provisions have not adapted to the changes in today's situation. Therefore, the independent law on medical insurance policy is due, and it is expected that the medical security law will be incorporated into the legislative plan as soon as possible.
According to the 2018 Statistical Express of Medical Security Development released by the National Health Insurance Bureau, as of the end of 2018, the number of people participating in basic medical insurance in China was 1344.52 million, and the coverage was stable at more than 95%. In order to protect the rights and interests of such a large number of insured people, existing laws and policies are far from enough. Many problems exposed in practice are related to the imperfect health insurance laws.
Take the frequent cases of defrauding medical insurance funds in recent years as an example, the main reason is that medical insurance funds involve multiple chains, and the current legal system is not systematic and sound. Although there are relevant punitive provisions in the Social Insurance Law, the Criminal Law and other laws, there is no effective constraint on the phenomenon of defrauding medical insurance funds. It is not enough to rely only on punishment after the event. We must improve the governance of the legal system.
In addition, the medical insurance fund still needs to be promoted by law in terms of mutual assistance and mutual aid. For example, the reimbursement rate within the medical insurance hospitalization policy for employees and urban and rural residents in Guangdong Province reached 87% and 76% respectively, ranking the top in the country. However, the reimbursement rate of medical insurance in some places still needs to be improved. Otherwise, poverty will occur due to illness and return to poverty due to illness. This requires laws to clarify the financing mechanism and responsibility sharing ratio of medical insurance funds.
In addition, the current law lags behind the reform process, so it is urgent to improve the law. Nowadays, the new rural cooperative medical system and urban residents' medical insurance have been merged into a unified urban and rural residents' medical insurance, but the current Social Insurance Law has "new rural cooperative medical system (i.e., the new rural cooperative medical system)" but no "basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents". The National Health Insurance Bureau is the competent department of the new medical insurance after the institutional reform, and it also needs to clarify the responsibilities and authorization by law.
In other countries, health insurance is also legislated separately. For example, the United States has the American Medical Insurance Act and Germany has the Disease Insurance Act. The reason why these countries legislate separately for medical insurance is that medical insurance is related to the health rights and interests of all citizens, and because the medical insurance system is relatively complex, involving the insured, medical institutions, medical institutions, agencies, government and other aspects, it needs more support from the legal system.
In recent years, some places have or are passing local legislation to eliminate residents' worries about medical insurance. In 2017, Hunan introduced the first local legislation on supervision and management of basic medical insurance in China. Although the relevant local legislation is of positive significance, the national level needs a professional and authoritative medical insurance law.
On behalf of Zheng Gongcheng, this time he proposed to formulate a medical security law as soon as possible, which shows that domestic people of insight have realized that the existing medical insurance system is difficult to adapt to the needs of social development and reform process. For this reason, he put forward five specific suggestions, pointing out what aspects of the law should be clear, which are worthy of reference for relevant legislative bodies. In addition, the relatively mature experience of foreign medical insurance legislation is also worth our absorption of "nutrition".
The importance of health insurance is obvious. In October last year, after 17 anti-cancer drugs were included in the medical insurance reimbursement list, the average retail price dropped by 56.7%, which greatly reduced the drug burden of patients. Since medical insurance is so important to the general public, we should apply special laws to "escort" medical insurance reform and development. To sum up, it is imperative to formulate the medical security law.
