Health Policy Reform in China

A Comparative Perspective

Most of the existing literature on health system reform in China deals with only one part of the reform process (for example, financing reform in rural areas, or the new system of purchasing pharmaceuticals), or consists of empirical case studies from particular cities or regions. This book gives a broad overview of the process of health system reform in China. It draws extensively both on the Western literature in health economics and on the experience of health care reform in a number of other countries, including the US, UK, Holland, and Japan, and compares China's approach to health care reform with other countries. It also places the process of health system reform in the context of re-orienting China's economic policy to place greater emphasis on equity and income distribution, and analyzes the interaction of the central and local governments in designing and implementing the reforms. This book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, students of health economics, health policy and health administration, and people who are interested in Chinese social policy.

Contents:

• Introduction:

  • Health Policy in China: Introduction and Background
  • Health Systems and Health Reform: International Models

• Main Components of Health Reform:

  • Strengthening China's Social Insurance System
  • Providing Primary Care
  • The Hospital Sector and Hospital Reform
  • China's National Drug Policy: A Work in Progress

• Health Care and Harmonious Development in China:

  • Health Policy and Inequality
  • Decentralized Government, Central-Local Fiscal Relations, and Health Reform

• China's Health System in the Future:

  • Health Services in the Future: Social Insurance and Purchasing
  • China's Future Health Care System: A Mixed Public-Private Model?

Readership: Policy makers, academics, students of health economics, health policy, and health administration, and people who are interested in Chinese social policy.
Key Features:

• Provides a progress report on the implementation of major reform plans announced by the state in 2009
• Draws extensively on the international health economics literature and on the experience of major countries with health system reform to propose and predict future health policy directions for China
• Analyzes health policy as a key component of the broader re-orientation of Chinese economic policy toward more emphasis on equity and redistribution of real income, and focuses on the interaction between the state and local government in the process