Increasing the number of serious diseases that are covered by medical insurance will lower patients' risk of being ruined by hefty medical bills. This is particularly true for rural residents.

The Ministry of Health's latest statistics show that more than 340,000 rural patients who had contracted serious diseases benefited from the new rural cooperative healthcare program in the first six months of this year. That plan now covers 20 types of serious diseases and offers reimbursements amounting to an average of 70 percent of the medical bills of patients who have had to stay in a hospital.

At a news conference on Tuesday, an official from the ministry said that the healthcare plan will cover patients who have contracted at least one of 12 types of severe diseases, including lung cancer, in a third of the rural places where the system has been in effect.