Opinion | Officials continue to enjoy unfair medical benefits, despite reforms

Civil servants in the eastern city of Nanjing will lose their privileged access to medical treatment next week, making it the last city in the Yangtze River Delta to implement a reform launched by the central government 14 years ago in an attempt to assuage public concerns about the unfair benefits given to officials.

The "free medical treatment" scheme, introduced in the early 1950s, allowed civil servants to receive assistance at public hospitals for little or no cost.

Unlike the employees of businesses, whose medical insurance contributions are deducted from their salaries each month, officials didn't have to spend anything.

Ordinary urban residents on the mainland have to pay about a third of their medical bills, while farmers living in rural areas have to meet half of their hospital expenses.

The central government said in 1998 that all civil servants should relinquish "free medical treatment" and instead join the basic medical insurance scheme used by the employees of urban businesses, making the same contributions and receiving the same level of benefits.

However, local officials in a quarter of the mainland's 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and more than 300,000 officials in central government departments, are still hanging on to their unfair benefits.

Nanjing's 200,000 local officials will forfeit their "free medical treatment" cards next month and join the urban employees' basic medical insurance scheme, Modern Express reported following an announcement by the city government. Two per cent of each official's monthly income will be transferred to their insurance account and the department they work for will contribute another 9 per cent of their monthly income to the account.