China endeavoring to push the healthcare reform: NPC deputies

Deputies to this year's National People's Congress are suggesting a new series of changes to the health care system, including an increase in basic medical insurance benefits, are going to help ease a growing burden on the country's medical system.

Following a trend which began in 2009, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's latest government work report to this year's NPC session has outlined a series of steps to add to the government's Healthy China strategy.

Specifically, government subsidies for basic health insurance for rural and non-working urban residents will be increased by 40 yuan, half of which will be allocated to the serious disease insurance scheme.

Patients are consulting new policies after a new round of  health care reform was released in Beijing on Apr 10, 2017. [Photo: VCG]

Chen Jingyu is the deputy head of the People's Hospital in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, and also a deputy to this year's NPC.

He says the new plans are a welcome ammendment.

"The central government has been doing a lot in the area of health care reform, including a wider coverage of medical insurance and the creation of national insurance networks. These plans have been worked out very quickly. Since last year the government has also started working on integrating regional medical resources and setting up priority diagnosis and treatment programs, which are the focus of the current reform process. At the same time, private hospitals and other health care providers are being encouraged to attract different groups of patients."

The increase in the basic subsidies for rural and non-working urban residents is specifically designed to help poorer people.

NPC deputy Liu Fan is the head of orthopedics at Affiliated Hospital with Nantong University.

"Since 2011, the subsidies for basic health insurance have increased from 240 yuan to 450 yuan, which is already a big step forward. Now that an extra 40 yuan has been added, the subsidies are now double what they originally started out as. This reflects that our government is doing what it can to help average people benefit from the policies. Patients can now be directly reimbursed at the place where they receive treatment. This is very convenient for specific groups such as migrant workers."

NPC deputy Liu Fan attends the Jiangsu delegation session at which deputies dicuss the 2018 government work report in Beijing on Mar 5, 2018. [Photo: China Plus/Yang Guang]

Priority diagnosis and treatment has been made one of the top priorities in the current health care reform program.

Trialed in certian cities in the past few years, it involves three levels of health care, with doctors referring patients based on the seriousness of their illness.

The ultimate goal is to distribute patients to different facilities, based on the level of care they need.

This is considered a priority, as many people in China tend to distrust community health care facilities, and will often gravitate to major centers, such as Beijing, in search of the best health care they can find, regardless of the seriousness of their illness.

This puts a massive burden on major health care centers.

Gan Huatian is an NPC deputy and a professor at Sichuan University's West China Hospital.

"The key to breaking the difficulty of seeing doctors is the priority diagnosis and treatment program. This has already been proved by many countries. To make the mechanism work, we need to increase the overall capabilities of personnel at primary hospitals. Only when the general practitioners at the primary level can diagnose illnesses accurately and refer patients appropriately will patients begin to trust them. We also think that the incomes of primary doctors should also be increased so that more competent doctors will be willing to work at the primary levels."

However, deputies to the NPC do concede that the priority diagnosis and treatment program will be slow to accept among patients.

As such, they suggest that calls for a fully subsidized public health care system in China remains unattainable at this point.