Friday April 17 2009

A serious illness can wipe out a family’s life and the need to set aside earnings for potential medial costs is considered a major drag on the domestic consumption that the government so badly needs to boost to raise the flagging

China’s economy faces a shaky future. But it’s not as if China doesn’t have the money to jumpstart its own recovery; money accumulated thanks to its

savings culture and

reform was finally released for public scrutiny on October 14. The reform aimed to provide universal

health care reform schemes around China.

is reporting on China’s ambitious program to give universal to all 1.3 billion Chinese citizens by 2020 covering 90 percent of the population within the next two years. Critics of the plan say it does not give detailed information regarding funding and implementation.

the use of anaesthetics.

in an effort to solicit public opinion.

Changes also emphasize disease prevention health care in rural areas and the development of both western and traditional medicines.

The draft listed five priorities: speeding up the establishment of a universal health care system setting up a basic drug system improving the grassroots health service network providing equal public health service to rural and urban residents and pushing forward reform trials in state-run

The reforms reverse the market-driven policies of much of the past two decades. The outbreak in 2003 of SARS an often fatal respiratory disease made the government realise what a mess the health-care system had become. Government and clinics starved of funding had turned to raising money (and boosting ill-paid

Critics say China’s health system falls far behind the needs of the 1.3bn people it is supposed to look after. Since the economy was opened up 30 years ago China has gradually abandoned the old communist-style cradle-to-grave welfare system. As a result earning money has become the target for many hospitals

It started with a bad cough. Li Liyun a 22-year-old migrant worker tried to ignore it because she couldn’t afford medicine. She certainly couldn’t afford a prenatal checkup. She and her partner Xiao Zhijun were so broke that they sometimes went for three days without