摘要
During the current economic transition, a number of cooperative medical insurance programs were tested in different rural regions in China. However, the programs did not extended to all parts of the country. In 1998, the cooperative medical system covered 22.2 percent of the population in high-income areas, but only less than 3 percent of the population in less developed areas (Editorial Committee of Health Almanac, 1999). These facts raise the following questions:
