Beijing has yet to work out the details, despite vow to usher in medical reforms
Beijing is still debating how to finance universal health-care coverage, even though it pledged to announce a long-awaited blueprint on overhauling China's notorious medical system this year.
Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qunan said yesterday various ministries and departments were still debating what services the central government should finance, and whether Beijing should pay service providers or patients.
'In terms of the directions and ways of [government] investment, we have to continuously explore where the investment should go, such as disease prevention, public health, basic health-care provision, different types of medical insurance systems, the basic medicine provision system and the growing Chinese medicine industry,' he said.
'Whether we should pay the service providers or the service buyers remains a major question for debate,' added the spokesman.
A joint ministerial panel is now hammering out a reform blueprint, but how to cut extortionate medical fees and provide affordable medical care has stirred intense debate within and outside the government.
At an earlier meeting, Minister of Health Gao Qiang shed light on the direction in which the government wants to steer the controversial reforms by outlining the main targets: providing free and cheap basic health care at the community level; building a variety of medical insurance systems both in cities and the countryside; stepping up government control over the production and procurement of basic medicines; and improving the management of public hospitals to try to make them less cash-hungry.