Medical care reform: making it easier to see a doctor

PATH OF REFORM

In spite of the improved benefits experienced by Song, the medical care system of China has long been criticized. The focus is on the soaring medical fees, lack of access to affordable medical services, poor doctor-patient relationships and low medical insurance coverage.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that the personal spending on medical services has doubled from 21.2 percent in 1980to 49.3 percent in 2006, while the government funding dropped to 18.1 percent from 36.2 percent in 1980.

For this reason, medical services, along with tuition fees and housing, is called one of the "three new mountains" that greatly diminish Chinese citizens' sense of happiness, after the reform and opening up.

In 1997, the State Council issued a historic decision, defining medicine as a social welfare sector, which for the fist time meant to correct the previous concept that medical services were a type of commercial product.

In the next ten years, China implemented a series of medical reforms, such as the basic medical insurance for urban employees and the new cooperative medical scheme for farmers.

But the Development Research Center of the State Council, an influential think-tank, concluded in a report in 2005 that "the medical reform in the past decade is basically unsuccessful".