MORE than 3.29 million people in urban Qingdao have been covered by basic medical insurance, of whom 2.58 million are employed.

    Employees can have more than 75 percent of their hospitalization spending paid by the insurance, higher than the national average. Those unemployed can have 66 percent of their hospital fees covered by the insurance. The maximum payment for an employee is 153,000 yuan (US$23,000) annually and that for an unemployed resident is 120,000 yuan.

    People covered by the medical insurance have seen an improvement in the healthcare they’ve received since the city started the reform of basic medical insurance in 2000.

    (Li Hao, Jia Feng)