Zheng Gongcheng, a delegate to the National People's Congress and president of the Chinese Society of Social Security, suggested that a medical insurance law be enacted as soon as possible to establish a nationwide unified medical insurance system that covers all people. According to Zheng, the goal of the reform of the medical insurance system is not how much money has been deposited in the individual accounts of medical insurance, but to play the role of mutual aid and assistance, so that all people do not become poor due to illness, return to poverty due to illness, and do not affect the quality of life due to illness.
　　Although the current Social Insurance Law, Chapter 3, "Basic Medical Insurance", provides for medical insurance, it is in principle, and the law was enacted in 2010, so some of its provisions are no longer suitable for today's changes.
　　The 2018 Statistical Snapshot of Medical Security Business Development released by the National Health Insurance Bureau shows that as of the end of 2018, the number of participants in China's basic medical insurance was 134,452,000, and the coverage of participants was stable at over 95%. To protect the rights and interests of such a large number of participants, existing laws and policies alone are far from sufficient, and practice has revealed many problems related to the inadequacy of health insurance laws.
　　The main reason for the frequent cases of fraud and deception of medical insurance funds in recent years, for example, is that medical insurance funds involve multiple chains, and the current legal system is not systematic and sound. Although the Social Insurance Law, the Criminal Law and other laws have relevant punitive provisions, but the phenomenon of fraudulent medical insurance funds does not form an effective restraint, relying only on ex post facto punishment is not enough, must improve the legal system of governance.
　　In addition, there is still a need for the law to promote the medical insurance fund in mutual aid. For example, the reimbursement ratio within the policy of employee medical insurance and urban and rural residents' medical insurance in Guangdong province is 87% and 76% respectively, which is among the highest in the country, while the reimbursement ratio of medical insurance in some places still needs to be improved, otherwise there will be poverty due to illness and return to poverty due to illness, which requires the law to clarify the funding mechanism of medical insurance fund and the proportion of responsibility sharing.
　　In addition, the current law lags behind the reform process, so it is urgent to improve the law. Nowadays, the new rural cooperative medical insurance and urban residents' medical insurance have been merged into a unified urban and rural residents' medical insurance, but the current Social Insurance Law includes "new rural cooperative medical insurance" but not "urban and rural residents' basic medical insurance". The National Health Insurance Bureau is the competent authority for the new health insurance after the institutional reform, and it also needs to clarify its responsibilities and authority by law.
　　In other countries, health insurance is also legislated separately. For example, the United States has the American Health Care Act and Germany has the Sickness Insurance Act. The reason why these countries have separate legislation for health insurance is because health insurance is about the health rights of all citizens, and because the health insurance system is complex, involving the insured, medical institutions, pharmaceutical institutions, agencies, and the government, so it needs the support of the legal system.
　　In recent years, some localities have adopted or are in the process of adopting local legislation to eliminate residents' health insurance worries. 2017 saw the introduction of Hunan's first local legislation on the supervision and management of basic medical insurance in the country. Although local legislation is positive, a professional and authoritative health insurance law is needed at the national level.
　　Zheng Gongcheng's proposal to enact a medical insurance law as soon as possible shows that insightful people in China have realized that the existing medical insurance system is difficult to adapt to the needs of social development and reform process, and to this end, he has made five specific suggestions on what aspects of the law should be clarified, which are worthy of reference by the relevant legislative bodies. In addition, the more mature foreign experience of health insurance legislation is also worthy of our "nutrition".
　　The importance of medical insurance is obvious. Last October, 17 kinds of anti-cancer drugs were included in the medical insurance reimbursement list, and the average retail price was reduced by 56.7%, which greatly reduced the patients' burden of medication. Since health insurance is so important to the general public, it is reasonable to have a special law to "escort" health insurance reform and health insurance development. To sum up, it is imperative to formulate a medical insurance law.