Chronic, aging-associated diseases become major expenditures of China's medical insurance

Four chronic and aging-associated diseases have cost over half of China's medical insurance expenditures, according to an official from the National Health Commission (NHC) on Aug 17.

The four diseases are cardiac and cerebral vessel-related diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes, said Zhang Yuhui from the NHC.

Zhang said that controlling expenses of these four types of illnesses by value-based care is expected to save over 100 billion yuan for China every year.

China has also released the Healthy China Action (2019-2030) plan, which will implement prevention and control of these four major chronic diseases.