Medical Assistance Research Paper

Introduction
Medical assistance system is a fundamental targeted social assistance schemes in mainland China and medical assistance services across and integrates welfare services and medical care services, which are two important areas of social policy (Liu, Yan & Kong, 2009). Also, medical assistance is government’s obligation to safeguard human rights, that is, citizens’ rights to receive medical assistance from government and the society when they are in need (Shi, 2002).
Since 2003, China’s government has promulgated several laws, state ordinances, regulations and policies about social assistance and medical assistance so that established a framework covering both rural and urban medical assistance system and medical assistance services

Besides, staff members of medical assistance are mainly cadre of Civil Affairs Bureau and grassroots organizations, for example, sub-district administrative offices (Liu, Yan & Kong, 2009).
Targets of medical assistance system
Targets of medical assistance system include both rural and urban vulnerable group and people who are encountering poverty issues.
In rural area, there are four medical assistance services targets, which are households enjoying five guarantees, members of families in poverty, citizens who have costly personal burden of medical expenses which influences basic living of the family even after corporative Medicaid for suffering from a serious illness, and other eligible farmers facing poverty issues (Liu, Yan & Kong, 2009).
In urban area, there are seven main kinds of medical assistance services targets, include targets of minimum subsistence security who are participating in basic medical insurance of urban employees, citizens who have joined basic medical insurance of urban employees but still have heavy personal burden, urban residents in difficulty (in generalized concept), residents with special needs, older adults who are or over sixty years old in low income families, citizens who lose labor ability with severe disability and households which are required to insure for children or students with

Also, targets of medical assistance system contain many kinds of people in need.
Disadvantages of Medical Assistance System in Mainland China:
The minimum subsistence level of citizen is the urban poverty line formulated by government which is absolute poverty line. That is, China’s government is lacking of consideration of relative poverty issue (Liu, Yan & Kong, 2009). However, different cities and different towns have different economic development, that is, different consumption level, so it is necessary to stipulate different standard of what is Security Line for Minimum Subsistence in different