英语新闻视频 China aims to provide all with healthcare by 2020

 

The central government has announced its goal of providing everyone in the country with basic healthcare by 2020. It's an ambitious goal for a nation that will have a population of 1.5 billion by then.
Making healthcare affordable¹ and easily accessible is a top priority for many countries. But the task is much harder in China, the world's most populous² nation.


Gao Qiang, Vice³ Minister of Health, said, "I think the goal of offering every Chinese basic healthcare is enormous. It will be an arduous⁴ task. We have to make sure every citizen, including the huge rural population, will be covered."
But the size of the population is only one of many difficulties.
Gao Qiang said, "The most notable problem right now is that many people have no easy access to medical care. We still have a considerable number of urban and rural residents who have not joined any medical insurance system. Moreover, medical services are public welfare services. We need to stop those hospitals that make profit by selling medicine."
China started to reform its healthcare system in the early 1990s. Today, it has extended medical insurance to 170 million urban residents.
A rural cooperative medical insurance system was launched in 2003 to offer farmers basic healthcare. So far, more than eighty percent of the rural population have participated in the insurance scheme. And this year, unemployed⁵ urban residents and children will also be covered by the system.
Healthcare officials say the focus of their current work is to help employees in small firms join the medical insurance system.

1 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

2 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

3 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

4 arduous   

adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的

参考例句：

• We must have patience in doing arduous work.我们做艰苦的工作要有耐性。
• The task was more arduous than he had calculated.这项任务比他所估计的要艰巨得多。

5 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。