The number of people in Zhanjiang covered in the basic medical insurance program reached nearly 7.22 million by the end of June 2020, an increase of 102,000 people from that in 2019, marking an overall participation rate of more than 98 percent.

Zhanjiang has launched a series of supportive medical insurance policies in recent years.

The starting line of the critical illness insurance for urban and rural residents has been lowered from 20,000 yuan ($2,986) to 10,000 yuan, while it has been reduced for people with the minimum living allowances to 3,000 yuan.

The 17 anti-cancer drugs that are included in the national medical insurance directory have also been included into the city's medical insurance scope. By the end of 2019, there were 1,427 people in the city that had applied for such medical insurance reimbursements.

In 2019, half of the newly increased annual government financial subsidies were used by the city for its critical illness insurance program. The payment of the critical illness insurance compensation of Zhanjiang in 2019 totaled 157 million yuan.

In addition, green channels for impoverished people to take part in the basic medical insurance program were opened in the city to ensure that 100 percent of the impoverished people population has medical insurance.

During the implementation of strict COVID-19 prevention and control measures earlier this year, the city prepaid a special fund of 9.3 million yuan to designated hospitals and reimbursed 263,000 yuan in total medical insurance expenses.

Under the premise of ensuring the medium- and long-term balance of fund payments, the city allowed those enterprises that failed to pay employee medical insurance fees on time due to the impact of COVID-19 to delay payments on them for three months after the COVID-19 epidemic situation had improved and exempted them from late-payment charges.