More than 8,600 hospitals in China now allow cross-provincial settlement of medical bills, allowing residents of one province to seek treatment in another area, benefiting 180,000 people as of Saturday, said Lu Aihong, spokesman for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, at a news conference on Friday.?

Nearly 1.2 billion residents were covered by basic medical insurance in 2017, nearly 85 percent of the population of China, and subsidies granted to urban and rural residents have increased to 450 yuan ($70), Lu said.?Basic endowment insurance covered more than 900 million residents by the end of 2017.?

In addition, company pensions have increased in the past 13 years with more than 100 million people benefiting, Lu said.?