China's Cooperative Medical System: its historical transformations and the trend of development

The rural Cooperative Medical System (CMS) in China came into existence in the 1950s. Along with the development of the collective economy of agriculture and the promotion of this system by the Chinese Government, the coverage rate of the CMS in the rural areas increased from 1955 through the end of the 1970s, when it was estimated that 90 percent of the rural population was covered by the CMS. Since the rural economic reform in the early 1980s destroyed the rural collective economy on which the CMS was based, The coverage rate of the CMS went down to 5 percent. After 1985, the coverage rate of the CMS began to increase gradually because of the development of the collective fund for supporting the CMS and the governments' efforts to strengthen the CMS. The structure of CMS has changed over time. Traditionally, the CMS was organized at the village level. In order to increase the risk-sharing ability of this system, the trend is for it to be organized at the township level in the future.