Especially since the 2003 SARS crisis, China’s healthcare system has become a growing source of concern, both for citizens and the Chinese government. China’s once praised public health services have deteriorated into a system driven by economic constraints, in which poor people often fail to get access, and middle-income households risk to be dragged into poverty by the rising costs of care. The New Rural Co-operative Medical System (NRCMS) was introduced to counter these tendencies and constitutes the main system of public health insurance in China today. This book outlines the nature of the system, traces the processes of its enactment and implementation, and discusses its strengths and weaknesses. It argues that the contested nature of the fields of health policy and social security has long been overlooked, and reinterprets the NRCMS as a compromise between opposing political interests. Furthermore, it argues that structural institutional misfits facilitate fiscal imbalances and a culture of non-compliance in local health policy, which distort the outcomes of the implementation and limit the effectiveness of insurance. These dynamics also raise fundamental questions regarding the effectiveness of other areas of the comprehensive New Health Reform, which China has initiated to overhaul its healthcare system.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Economy - Health Economics, grade: 1.7, Furtwangen University; Villingen-Schwenningen, language: English, abstract: Hinsichtlich vieler dramatischer Szenen im Gesundheitssektor Chinas und nach intensiver Recherche über die Problematiken des chinesischen Gesundheitssystems wuchs das Interesse, mehr über die Problematiken der Gesundheitsversorgung in China zu erfahren, um hierfür Lösungsansätze zu erörtern. Nach der Einführung der Reform- und Öffnungspolitik von Deng Xiaoping wird auf der ganzen Welt von Chinas atemberaubendem Aufstieg berichtet. Der Wandel zum liberalisierten Handel führte zu einem verminderten Armutslevel und festigt China an die spitze der weltweiten Wirtschaftsmacht. Es ist nicht zu leugnen, dass sich China in einer Ära, von noch nie da gewesener Empfänglichkeit hinsichtlich ausländischer Einflüsse, befindet. Neben den Vorteilen die die neue Reform mit sich gebracht hat, sind innerhalb des ehemaligen zentralisierten Krankensystems schwere Probleme aufgetreten. Trotz dem intensiven Engagement der Regierung gibt es zahlreiche Bevölkerungsgruppen die im Gesundheitssystem benachteiligt werden. Nicht nur die Einführung der Wirtschaftsreform ist für die Chinesen ein Segen, sondern auch die Verbesserung der Gesundheitsreform hat viel zum höheren Lebensstandard beigetragen. Anderseits hat der Reformwechsel im Gesundheitssystem Nachteile mit sich gebracht. Durch die höhere Qualität der medizinischen Versorgung, ist auch der Zugang aufgrund Preiszuschläge schwerer als je zuvor. In dieser Thesis wird das Fehlverhalten vieler Bauern hinsichtlich der Gesundheit und Krankheit dargestellt, als auch die Funktion des zu überteuerten Gesundheitssystems, das im Schatten des Einheitsstaates von der Regierung geführt wird. Des Weiteren werden Lösungs- und Verbesserungsvorschläge vorgestellt, die zu einer Verbesserung des Gesundheitssystems in China führen können.

Includes section "Books and reports."

Hu (health economics, U. of California at Berkeley, US) and Hsieh (Institute of Economics, Sinica, Taiwan) present 12 papers on health care reform and health policy in Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, and China that were originally presented at the March 1999 Taipei International Conference on Health Economics. Focusing on quantitative economic research the papers are organized around the themes of health care reform, production of health, health care utilization, hospital behavior, and health care financing. Econometric analyses from the United States are also included as object lessons for Asian countries. One of the primary focuses of the authors is the reduction of both health care costs to organizations and health care utilization by consumers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Well-traveled throughout China and well-published on its political, cultural, and business aspects, the editors of this unusual new book and their contributing authors give a systematic analysis of public sector management—as it is now and as it is emerging—in a country of massive size, now in retreat from a centrally planned economy. Many features of the new reforms parallel the movement toward new public management in the West. Functions have been transferred away from China's public sector, including the government, and into the private sector, and many of the managerial tools common in the private sector have been introduced into the public sector. The book thus analyzes the logic, mechanisms, and designs of new public management in China. It examines context-bound issues, in the light of the legacies of massive state intervention, the transition away from centralized planning, the structure of the Leninist party-state, and Chinese bureaucratic culture. Finally it discusses and illustrates events in a variety of policy areas, and in doing so, draws upon unique interviews and field studies developed personally by each contributor. The result is an important insight into China and how its public sector operates, one that will have special value for professionals in international development, finance, banking, government, economics, politics, and for their academic colleagues as well.

Guide to information sources comprising an annotated bibliography on health services in developing countries and developed countries - health, nutrition, brain drain of medical personnel, medical care of nomads, health policy, etc.