BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's legislators have called for increasing support for the country's disabled people as results of an inspection have shown that the group is still among the poorest.
The country has set up a basic social security network for the disabled, but their general living standard lags behind the national average level, said Li Jianguo, vice chairman and secretary-general of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, at the top legislature's bimonthly session starting Monday.
Li made the remarks citing a report which was based on an inspection on the enforcement of the Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons conducted by the NPC Standing Committee between May and June.
By the end of 2011, nearly 12.33 million disabled people had been covered by a new type of old-age pension insurance for rural residents. Also, 2.6 million disabled people has been covered by old-age pension insurance for urban residents, Li said.
In terms of healthcare, by the end of 2011, more than 14.74 million disabled had been covered by the new rural cooperative medical care program, accounting for 96 percent of the disabled people in rural areas, according to the report.
In addition, about 4.33 million disabled people had been covered by the basic medical insurance system for urban residents, the report said.
Li, however, pointed out that the disabled remained the poorest group in the society, with more than 40 percent in rural areas living below the country's poverty line of 2,300 yuan (about 364 U.S. dollars) of annual per capita income.
Man pricked by syringe with HIV
Sina Microblog
Tencent Microblog
Feedback
RSS
