China National Healthcare Security Administration unveils 15th Five-Year Plan

China's National Healthcare Security Administration has released the “15th Five-Year Plan” for National Medical Insurance, outlining strategic goals for the next five years. The plan aims to transition from expanding coverage to precise governance and service empowerment, focusing on six core pillars: fair, rule-of-law, safe, digital, collaborative, and scientific medical insurance.

Key objectives include achieving provincial-level coordination of basic medical insurance by 2029 and expanding long-term care insurance to all coordinated regions by 2030. The plan also targets the direct distribution of maternity allowances to individuals, aiming for 90% coverage by 2025 and full implementation by 2030.

To address an aging population and rising medical costs, the administration will promote a multi-layered security system. This involves strengthening the role of basic medical insurance while encouraging commercial health insurance to provide complementary coverage, particularly for innovative drugs and treatments outside the basic medical insurance catalog. Additionally, the plan emphasizes the use of big data and artificial intelligence for fund supervision and aims to support pharmaceutical innovation by facilitating the integration of medical insurance data with research and development processes.