RESUMEN
To study health care for the poor in 7 districts, Lao Cai province. Both mechanisms providing health care for the poor, i.e, exemption and health insurance cards have diffculties and inappropriateness. Only have 2.6% of the poor provided with health insurance cards. Even though there have not been different and discriminated among people having health insurance cards, no health care services for people with health insurance cards provided at commune level has made difficulty in access for those people. Without financial support from central budget, it is impossible to buy health insurance cards for all the poor in Lao Cai province due to total amount of money spending for that would be too much compared to budget of the mountainous province.