Asia Healthcare Blog recently agreed on a partnership with the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies (CCS). You may have noticed that several of our recent articles have focused on lectures given at various CCS events. We consider ourselves fortunate to have developed this partnership, and we like to think that it partly reflects the quality of our authorship. Hopefully, in the coming months, we will be able to take this partnership into several interesting directions like a greater number of interviews with scholars and China business experts who regularly collaborate with CCS on various projects. This, in turn, will mean a richer experience for our readers (you).
This week, several UM CCS scholars give their first impression opinions on the 18th Party Congress and I want to strongly encourage you all to click over to read their made-for-internet-attention-span reflections. The English internet has a lot of information on China, but not all of it is accurate (to say the least). The CCS site offers you a guarantee of good insight. I encourage you all to check it out.
At the end of the article I chime in with my thoughts on what the 18th Party Congress will mean for the future of healthcare reform:
Damjan DeNoble, JD/CCS MA student, U-M
The 18th Party Congress will bring with it many changes to China, but the country’s ongoing national health reforms will not be affected.
Since 2009, the start of the current reforms, the rate of China insurance coverage has reached 95%, according to the latest numbers put forth in the March 2012 issue of the Lancet. If one considers that health insurance coverage ten years ago was limited to Party members and city hukou holders, this means that Chinese health planners have managed to provide health coverage for one billion people in less than ten years. It is of course debatable how useful this insurance is for many of those covered, but nevertheless the speed with which the insurance scheme was implemented is a grand achievement.
In the November 17 circular issued by China’s Ministry of Health to coincide with the unveiling of the new 18th Party Congress Leadership, medical reform leaders made clear that the reforms are a national priority. Specifically, maintaining the pace of reform in the insurance system, continuing to strengthen primary care provision in both the urban hospital system and the grassroots health system, and facilitating greater coordination between all providers in the national health care network is viewed as critical to preserving social harmony, the goal emphasized by 18th party leaders. Of particular significance to business interests, the MOH also stated within the November 7th circular, that in order to meet these goals China’s health planners will work to integrate private sector solutions within the public health system.
Coupled with the fact that hospitals were taken off the restricted foreign investment list in 2011, the inclusion of private-sector-based strategies in the MOH circular may lead some analysts to portend a large scale opening of a new China market in private healthcare. Such opportunities have been thus far limited to smaller specialty hospitals working independently (for the most part) of the public healthcare infrastructure, who cater services to high-income Chinese, as well as foreigners with overseas private insurance. While it is tempting to make such predictions due to the healthcare industry’s role in pacing the American economy over the past several decades, it is important for both investors and would be public health scholars to remember that because of China’s strong commitment to public provision of healthcare, these private opportunities will more likely have to fit within China’s national health plan. In other words, the future of private healthcare during the term of the 18th Party Congress is private healthcare with Chinese characteristics; one much more focused on building a strong social safety net, than on building an industry that will be an economic growth driver.
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