First, I would like to appreciate Jame's efforts in providing this information on Lancet to us! It inspires us to investigate what we should and can do in the future.
I do agree that the health system strengthening process itself is really contextual. But we can still seek global efforts to achieve this goal. Everybody will leave this world eventually; before that, the healthy subsidize the sick. This rule remains the same regardless of cultural difference.
The priorities for US healthcare reform in the next decades may lie in the control of health service expenditure without impairing quality of service and patient safety, and make service more affordable to the public. However, the "socialized medicine" seems to be by no way accepted for the majority of elements in the health system. Policy makers will have to struggle to balance the efficiency and equity (probably will focus more in equity in the future). Private insurance company will definitely not let power go. Disparities in deny in claims will not disappear in the short term. Even if governments are making every effort to guarantee each individual will be covered by certain kind of health insurance, how can it be ensured that each patient will get the payment they should get from the plan they've enrolled in? More efforts should be made to regulate the payment process.
I guess all the countries with private insurance as the main source of financing will come up with the similar problems as US in the future, regardless of the economic status. So what is the situation in countries where most of the health insurance plans are run by governments? Making affordable health service universal to the population will be easier. Medical related cost may be decently controlled. But expenditure on management and enabling the public to trust government will be elevated! Here I will take China for an example. According to the new health reform released in last April, in order to control the unreasonably escalating price on pharmacy for the impatient service, the government is trying to launch the policy that no difference exists between the price primarily from the factories and that on patients in hospitals. Instead, administration fees on pharmacy will be charged for each prescription. Besides, a full list of essential pharmacy for regular treatments on common diseases is conceived as well. These drugs, once approved to be added into the list, will appear on most of the prescriptions by physicians .We can imagine that how severe a controversy will be induced for the amount of such fees, and what should be define as “essential”, “regular” and “common”. It will be very interesting to know who will be invited to attend to dealing with these two businesses. The pharmacy companies, academic institutes, or government officials?
When there may be difference in efforts for each country to move toward the goal of strengthening health systems, we can always find ways to work together to enhance our capacity in making health care a human right. There will be no single system work perfectly for the all. But we can learn from each other. The transparency and relatively highly efficient system in US will be a good example for China to think more about the process of implementation of the new health reform; it will be interesting to investigate how China can achieve such significant progress in health status improvement with so little money during the past decades.
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ReplyDeleteFirst, I would like to appreciate Jame's efforts in providing this information on Lancet to us! It inspires us to investigate what we should and can do in the future.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the health system strengthening process itself is really contextual. But we can still seek global efforts to achieve this goal. Everybody will leave this world eventually; before that, the healthy subsidize the sick. This rule remains the same regardless of cultural difference.
The priorities for US healthcare reform in the next decades may lie in the control of health service expenditure without impairing quality of service and patient safety, and make service more affordable to the public. However, the "socialized medicine" seems to be by no way accepted for the majority of elements in the health system. Policy makers will have to struggle to balance the efficiency and equity (probably will focus more in equity in the future). Private insurance company will definitely not let power go. Disparities in deny in claims will not disappear in the short term. Even if governments are making every effort to guarantee each individual will be covered by certain kind of health insurance, how can it be ensured that each patient will get the payment they should get from the plan they've enrolled in? More efforts should be made to regulate the payment process.
I guess all the countries with private insurance as the main source of financing will come up with the similar problems as US in the future, regardless of the economic status. So what is the situation in countries where most of the health insurance plans are run by governments? Making affordable health service universal to the population will be easier. Medical related cost may be decently controlled. But expenditure on management and enabling the public to trust government will be elevated! Here I will take China for an example. According to the new health reform released in last April, in order to control the unreasonably escalating price on pharmacy for the impatient service, the government is trying to launch the policy that no difference exists between the price primarily from the factories and that on patients in hospitals. Instead, administration fees on pharmacy will be charged for each prescription. Besides, a full list of essential pharmacy for regular treatments on common diseases is conceived as well. These drugs, once approved to be added into the list, will appear on most of the prescriptions by physicians .We can imagine that how severe a controversy will be induced for the amount of such fees, and what should be define as “essential”, “regular” and “common”. It will be very interesting to know who will be invited to attend to dealing with these two businesses. The pharmacy companies, academic institutes, or government officials?
When there may be difference in efforts for each country to move toward the goal of strengthening health systems, we can always find ways to work together to enhance our capacity in making health care a human right. There will be no single system work perfectly for the all. But we can learn from each other. The transparency and relatively highly efficient system in US will be a good example for China to think more about the process of implementation of the new health reform; it will be interesting to investigate how China can achieve such significant progress in health status improvement with so little money during the past decades.
You are not the regular blog writer, man. You certainly have something important to add to the net. Such a wonderful blog. I will return for more.
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