Healthcare … a right or a business??
October 9th, 2009 by Kent KedlMore not-so-random thoughts on China health insurance … I was just in the U.S., speaking at the Analytical and Life Sciences Systems Association annual senior management meeting on the China market for healthcare and food safety research. In preparing for that talk and my most recent Podcast on China healthcare, I was struck again at how Westerners – particularly Americans – put health insurance at the heart of any discussion of healthcare reform. But in China, health insurance – to use a more polite phrase – doesn’t mean JACK! In the U.S., it is estimated that 15% don’t have insurance (and another 8% or so are under-insured) … but in China it is estimated that only 15% DO have it (and, as the last Podcast detailed, most of that is inadequate).
However, even if the task for “universal coverage” seems more daunting in China than the U.S., I wouldn’t bet against China to actually get there before the U.S. does. Why? Simply put, the Chinese government is starting to see that universal healthcare is a responsibility of the government to provide to all its citizens. In other words, China seems to be looking at healthcare first as a right, and then as a business This means that, while companies are invited to participate in healthcare and private companies can expect to make a profit, at the end of the day, healthcare is a right and it is a moral responsibility of the government to provide it, at the expense of business, if necessary.
Don’t get me wrong … the Chinese government is being pretty self-serving in considering healthcare as a right. They know that, in order to maintain the support of the people, they need to provide for their basic needs. The Party and the government (one in the same in China) knows that healthcare is an issue of national security, not just the health of its people.
But the U.S. is different. Healthcare is not a right in the U.S., it is a “benefit” that only the employed (most of them) receive from their employer and many (but not all) elderly receive from the government. If it were assumed to be a right – as it is in most of the rest of the developed world and much of the developing world (like China) – I think we would have a VERY different discussion on our hands.
