The Beijing municipal government has vowed to incorporate the elderly and children into the medical insurance system and to subsidize their medical bills within five years.

Zhang Xinqing, head of the Beijing Labor and Social Security Bureau, said beneficiaries of the program would include senior citizens aged 70 or above with no work unit to cover their medical costs, primary and middle school and university students, and infants and pre-school children.

The proportion of the medical cost to be paid was under discussion.

Beijing has more than 25,000 senior citizens who meet the requirement and about two million students, infants and children.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2007)