Li Bin: Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health Care System

(en.nhfpc.gov.cn)

Updated: 2014-08-24

1． Furthering Health Care Reform Is Essential to Building of A Moderately Prosperous Society

Well-being is the basis for anyone’s personal development. Without health for all, a moderately prosperous society would be out of the question. Since the founding of New China, and particularly since the launch of this new round of health care reform, the health level of the general public in China has been substantially improved. However, with socioeconomic development entering a new stage, two new trends present themselves: Firstly, the health needs of urban and rural residents have become increasingly higher, multi-leveled and diversified. Secondly, changes in the spectrum of diseases, innovations in medical technologies, the prevention and control of major contagious diseases, and various kinds of risks brought about by incidental injuries and inadequate food safety overlap. All these have exacerbated the contradiction between the limited supply of health care resources and the increasingly high health care needs of the public. Only by accelerating the reform and improving the basic health care system can we gradually solve the problems and challenges facing us and see to it that we can provide basic health care for everyone by 2020.

2. Furthering Health Care Reform Will Improve the People’s Well-Being and Develop and Modernize the Whole Society

Strengthening social security and improving people’s well-being will further drive modernization. It is necessary to provide better health care for the public in order to assure the huge population (over 1 billion) will develop in a healthy way. Moreover, deepening health care reform means that governments at all levels will invest more in health care provisions. Thus they directly expand the financing and advancing of the medical and health care sector. At the same time, these efforts will help the general public to worry less about possible health problems in the future, therefore increasing immediate consumption. In addition, China will accelerate urbanization, which has entered an essentially important stage, meaning that large number of surplus rural laborers will go to the urban areas. Deepening the health care reform will create conducive conditions for the balanced urban-rural development and the integration of migrant rural workers into their adoptive cities. Therefore, we must fully realize the key role of health care reform in promoting the socioeconomic development and see that health care reform will contribute to the expansion of domestic demand, the adjustment of economic structures, the promotion of overall reforms, and the improvement of people's livelihood.

3. The Practice of Further Deepening the Health Care Reform Is of Great Importance to Economic and Social Development

Over the last 30 years, China has made great achievements in socioeconomic development, mainly the result of reform. Development in the future still has to be reform driven. Reform is the biggest dividend, and health care reform is of substantial significance to the economic and societal development in China. Health care reform means more governmental investments focused on low-income groups. To some extent, this is actually a readjustment of the income distribution structure, which will help promote social equity, justice, harmony and progress. Moreover, health care reform involves the transformation of government functions and reforms concerning the fiscal and financial system, the price system, and the personnel and salary system, which call for bold experiments and innovations. All in all, the health care reform is an essential part of the whole reform and experience accumulated in the process of advancing the health care reform will have a far-reaching impact on other reforms in economic and social undertakings.