China Launches Health Service Reforms

China has launched wide-ranging health service reforms, which willimpose cost limits and budget ceilings. The number of drugs and treatments that doctors will be able to prescribe without charge is to be significantly limited, and doctors are also to be restricted in the type of drugs and treatments they will be allowed to undertake.

Medical care reimbursable by the state will, in future, cover only 1,156 drugs that doctors will be allowed to prescribe; patients will have to pay privately for any items not on the official list. This restriction is aimed at controlling surging medical bills and stopping doctors accepting illicit payments from drug manufacturers.

Chinese state health care spending rose from 2.7 billion renminbi in 1978 to 55.8 billion renminbi ($6.71 billion) in 1994, and this trend has continued. The municipal government in the capital, Beijing, now estimates that its own health care spending in 1997 could rise to 8.7 billion renminbi from 6.6 billion renminbi in 1996, if reforms are not introduced quickly.