Published 15 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1543
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1543

News

China’s blueprint puts healthcare reform high on political agenda

Jane Parry

1 Hong Kong

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

China has released a blueprint of its plan to reform the country’s healthcare system, originally announced in October 2008, but observers say the plan still does not have enough practical detail to ascertain how the reforms will be implemented.

The blueprint, released on 6 April and jointly endorsed by the central committee of the Communist party of China and the state council, China’s cabinet, spells out the target of universal access to health care for all of China’s 1.3 billion people by 2020.

The main planks of the reform are better primary care (especially in rural areas); equitable distribution of basic medical care; universal access to health insurance; the creation of an essential drugs system to curb the spiralling costs of prescriptions; and a pilot scheme to test reform of the hospital sector.

The blueprint also provides details of what steps towards those targets will be taken when the central . . . [Full text of this article]


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