Literature Review on China's Medical Service Supply System Reform
Xue Jiang
2016
Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Economy, Management and Education Technology
unpublished
The marketization orientation of medical system reform of China is one of the hotspots for governmental decision-making departments and the theoretical circle. And the medical service supply system has been debated for years in academia. Scholars have made in-depth researches and discussions on a series of issues such as the orientation of the government's responsibility in medical system reform and the medical reform path for public hospitals, which are worthy of being further considered.
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... rch on Medical Service Market Arrow (1963) pointed out in his researches on medical service market that patients are in a disadvantageous information position in medical market, which has increased risks and uncertainties when they are consuming medical services. A false judgment is likely to result in a wrong selection, which in return will generate a rather higher cost. Compared with other goods, medical services are featured by unchangeability, unrepeatability and irreversibility in many cases. By comparing medical market with markets of common goods, economist Stiglitz (1988) found that the former has strong particularities, like its highly asymmetrical information. Wang Yong et al. (2005) analyzed the differences between markets of common goods and medical service market, and discovered that the increase of supply tend to result in the price fall in the markets of common goods; the contrary is the case in medical market. To be specific, in case of an increase in supply, hospitals will use the highly asymmetrical information hospital-patient to produce induced demands. Medical System Defects of China Based on the current situation of reform, Zhu Hengpeng (2008) stated that there are fundamental defects in China's medical system: high barriers to entry and insufficient supply of medical services caused by excessive regulations; inappropriate price regulation, incentive mechanism and allocation of medical resources; public spending on health obviously focusing on large cities and the rich; and unbalanced allocation of medical resources. After reviewing the documents related to medical systems issued by the Party Central Committee since the founding, Gao Chunliang, Mao Fengfu and Yu Hui (2009) held that financial constraint, path dependence and interest group are the main three factors limiting the deepening of medical system reform. Therefore, they proposed to decrease cost by introducing competition, boost medical system reform by improving social medical insurances, eliminate impacts of vested interest groups, and get rid of the administrative monopoly. By concluding achievements and problems of medical and health care system, Feng Jin and Yu Yangyang (2008) argued that heavy medical burden, limited effect of medical insurances and
doi:10.2991/icemet-16.2016.102
fatcat:7a6pf7mjsfhmrejqj7g46qgvyu