The central government has announced its goal of providing everyone in the country with basic healthcare by 2020. It's an ambitious goal for a nation that will have a population of 1.5 billion by then.  Making healthcare affordable and easily available is the most important thing for many countries. But the task is much harder in China, the world's most populous nation. Gao Qiang, Vice Minister of Health, said, "I think the goal of offering every Chinese basic healthcare is extremely large. It will be an arduous task. We have to make sure every citizen, including the huge rural  population, will be covered." But the size of the population is only one of many difficulties. Gao Qiang said, "The most obvious problem right now is that many people have no easy access to medical care. We still have a considerable number of city and rural residents who have not joined any medical insurance system. Moreover, medical services are public welfare services. We need to stop those hospitals that make profit by selling medicine." China started to reform its healthcare system in the early 1990s. Today, it has extended medical insurance to 170 million city residents. A rural cooperative medical insurance system was launched in 2003 to offer farmers basic healthcare. So far, more than eighty percent of the rural population have participated in the insurance scheme. And this year, unemployed city residents and children will also be covered by the system. Healthcare officials say their key work now is to help employees in small firms join the medical insurance system. Now their important work is to   _  .
provide everyone in the country with basic healthcare control the population help people in small companies join the medical insurance system offer farmers basic healthcare