The Chinese government, which has been struggling to cope with the low birth rate trend, plans to eliminate the personal burden of childbirth starting next year, local media reported.
According to Xinhua News Agency and others on the 14th, the National Medical Security Work Conference held on the 13th announced a plan to reasonably increase the level of prenatal examination medical cost coverage based on the ability of the medical insurance fund and basically eliminate the personal charge for delivery within the policy range next year.
Currently, seven provinces in China, including Jilin Province in the northeast region, Jiangsu Province and Shandong Province in the east, are fully supporting the cost of hospitalization and delivery medical expenses within the policy range.
China also plans to expand the coverage of maternity insurance to flexible workers, farmers’ workers (workers who migrated from rural areas to cities to find jobs), and workers engaged in new types of employment outside of the traditional category.
In addition, the plan is to reduce the burden of medical expenses for childbirth insurance subscribers by seeking ways to enact basic service packages including prenatal tests, and to include appropriate delivery pain programs.
In addition, it plans to improve the health insurance payment management policy for assisted reproductive technology programs and ensure that childbirth subsidies are delivered directly to insurance subscribers.
Zhang Ke, director of China’s National Medical Security Agency, explained, “The goal is to eliminate the out-of-pocket expenses for inpatient delivery on the medical insurance list from the moment a pregnant woman is admitted to the hospital until she is discharged with a child.”
Meanwhile, China has come up with various support policies as the trend of avoiding marriage and childbirth intensifies due to the high burden of childcare and education expenses and youth employment difficulties amid the economic slowdown.
China’s fertility rate has been less than half of the 2.1 fertility rate required to maintain the population over the past three years. China’s annual number of births fell below 10 million for three consecutive years from 2022 to last year, and the overall population also declined by three years.
