Health care costs forcing China’s patients into crippling debt
While state insurance covers basic costs, severe illnesses, like the cancer that killed Li Xinjin’s son, can financially decimate a family. Lenders are stepping in to fill the gap
As China’s medical bills rise steeply, outpacing government insurance provision, patients and their families are increasingly turning to loans to pay for health care, adding to the country’s growing burden of consumer debt.
While public health insurance reaches nearly all of the nation’s 1.4 billion people, its coverage is basic, leaving patients liable for about half of total health care spending, with the proportion rising further for serious or chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
That is likely to get significantly worse as the personal health care bill soars almost fourfold to 12.7 trillion yuan (HK$14.7 trillion) by 2025, according to Boston Consulting Group estimates.
For many, like Li Xinjin, a construction materials trader whose son was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2009, that means taking on crippling debt.
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Li, from Cangzhou in Hebei province, scoured local papers and websites for small lenders to finance his son’s costly treatment at a specialist hospital in Beijing, running up debts of more than 1.7 million yuan, about 10 times his typical annual income.