Friday, August 5, 2011

Chinese and U.S. Health Care System Reform

See the Westlake Forum:  Healthcare Reform in China and the US: Similarities, Differences and Challenges, held at Emory University on April 10-12, 2011.  Both slides and video presentations are available for review.  This program is a valuable reference for researchers working on health care financing reform in any context- at the state or country levels of analysis.  William Hsiao of Harvard University points out the critical importance of  professionalism and ethics among both physicians and system administrators as a foundation of the reform process.  He also emphasizes that China is ahead of the U.S. in designing a system to offer health care services to all  Chinese citizens. On the other hand, he suggests that the Chinese strategy of hospital privatization to promote competition is not based on any policy evidence from world experience.