China premier under fire over rising medical costs
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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, under fire from political rivals over the disintegration of medical welfare, has pledged to expand a pilot programme that provides subsidised care to rural residents, sources and state media said.
The vow came days after a 42-year-old farmer with terminal lung cancer set off a home-made bomb aboard a bus in the southeastern province of Fujian in a suicide attack one political source said was linked to his inability to afford treatment.
Wen chaired a cabinet meeting on Wednesday which decided to accelerate the two-year-old pilot programme and expand it to cover 40 percent of rural counties nationwide by 2006 from 21 percent now, the official People’s Daily reported on Thursday.
More than two decades of economic reforms have ended cradle-to-grave welfare for the masses. In 2000 the cash-strapped government deepened reform of China’s hospitals, dividing them into for-profit and non-profit institutions and slashing subsidies. Most of the 800 million rural residents lack medical insurance.
Wen, who took over as premier only in 2003, has been criticised for allowing the cost of health care, education and housing to rise to exorbitant levels at a time when the stock market has slumped.
“Medical reforms are a failure,” the source, from a rival Communist Party faction who requested anonymity, told Reuters. “There are a lot of complaints about Wen Jiabao.
“Fifty percent of common people cannot afford medical treatment when sick,” he said, quoting a Health Ministry survey.
But a source close to the premier’s camp defended him saying: “The problems were left over from the previous administration.” Political analysts said Wen’s position was secure.
After sweeping to power in 1949, the Communists trumpeted their success in eradicating epidemics from smallpox and plague to cholera that killed millions in the preceding decades.
LIFE SUPPORT
Legions of “barefoot doctors” fanned out across the countryside providing farmers with basic medical care. Universal health care for urban residents helped push life expectancy above 70 years by the mid-1980s.
But market reforms in the past 25 years have left the health care system in need of life support.
As part of the pilot “rural cooperative medical system”, the People’s Daily said, the central government planned to double subsidies to 20 yuan ($2.47) per person per year. Local governments should boost their contributions correspondingly.
The Communist Party mouthpiece hailed the programme as a success, saying it would not increase the burden on farmers.
Wealthy provinces along China’s eastern coast should introduce the scheme ahead of schedule, the newspaper said.
Monday’s suicide bomb attack appeared to be just the tip of the iceberg.
Last week, Health Minister Gao Qiang accused greedy hospitals of charging exorbitant fees and prescribing unnecessary and expensive medication, while the cabinet has called efforts to reform the medical system “basically unsuccessful”.
Despite treating fewer patients each year, Chinese hospital revenues jumped 70 percent from 2000 to 2003, state media said. They said the rise in health care costs had surpassed salary growth for the past eight years.
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