Kan Bing Nan, Kan Bing Gui: Challenges for China’s Healthcare System Thirty Years into Reform
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Virtually all recent research and commentary on China’s healthcare system – in China and abroad – opens with some reference to the ubiquitous lament among PRC patients, “kan bing nan, kan bing gui” (getting medical care is difficult and expensive). This phrase even appears prominently in the 50-page outline of the 115-year plan for national economic and social development of the People’s Republic of China.th1Healthcare access and affordability have become key sources of social discontent in both urban and rural areas. A national poll of over 3000 people in 2005 reported that the top five problems people listed were healthcare “kan bing nan, kan bing gui” (75%), followed by income inequalities (67%), corruption (62%), educational expenses (58%) and social security (48%; Hu Shanlian 2007, p.6), with polls in 2008 reflecting a similar high priority on healthcare (Lianghui Diaocha 2008). In fact, in 2005 a research institute under the State Council issued a report stating that China’s healthcare reforms were “basically a failure” (Guowuyuan Fazhan Yanjiu Zhongxin Ketizu 2005) – earning healthcare reforms the dubious distinction of being the only major policy labeled a failure by a government agency.
JOUR
Eggleston, Karen N.
2010
Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China’s Transformation
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