Beijing to Overhaul Health Care

One comment – read the last 2 sentences. Does this sound familiar to what we are facing here in the US? BD

SHANGHAI -- China's government said it will spend more than $120 billion over the next three years to repair the nation's health-care system by expanding insurance coverage, revamping public hospitals and improving access to medical treatment.

The State Council, the Chinese government's equivalent of a cabinet, which announced the plan Wednesday, said its goal is to extend medical insurance to 90% of the population by 2011 and make "basic health-care services" available to all of China's 1.3 billion citizens.

The government aims to do that in part by putting in place a network of hospitals, clinics and community health-care centers covering both rural and urban areas. The government intends to improve insurance coverage by increasing subsidies for premiums.

As China shifted from central planning to a market economy in the late 1980s, it sharply cut public services, especially in the countryside, and essentially privatized medical care.

Hospitals are pressed to operate as for-profit businesses and push drugs and tests in order to boost their income, critics say.