Chinese Economics Thread

[bladerunner]

Y



I hope you joking when you said India has better healthcare system then China. Has you been to India? Or even look at the news on India?

Sorry me bad. I meant when compared with China, practioners at the highest level of health services., India or some of her doctors consciously went out to cultivate Western clientele for its medical services and have gone on to establish an enviable record in that area.


rereading what I wrote it seemed clear to me

"at the leading edge of surgical operations I think it lags behind India"

oh well thats the way it goes.

 

[wowa97]

Sorry me bad. I meant when compared with China, practioners at the highest level of health services., India or some of her doctors consciously went out to cultivate Western clientele for its medical services and have gone on to establish an enviable record in that area.


rereading what I wrote it seemed clear to me

"at the leading edge of surgical operations I think it lags behind India"

oh well thats the way it goes.

First of all you were comparing the healthcare system of China and other developing country. You choose to compare it to India. Plus what you said is true India does offer Western clientele medical services but does that make it better then china? Is the Western clientele rich or the poor who can't pay for the services of there home country like the USA? Just because you chase after Western clientele it doesn't made it better. If we comparing the healthcare of the two country there is no comparison.

 

[delft]

Whats more interesting is that he goes on to say

"he did not see the situation as a sovereign debt crisis, arguing that eurozone has the money to save itself. "

It is indeed a political crisis. Power that lay with the parliaments of the member states went to the European Commission and the European Councils of Ministers, including a Council of Heads of State and Prime Ministers, but effectively to the Brussels bureaucracy, and only for a very small part to the European Parliament. So as far as power still lays with the politicians it means ministers telling parliaments: Sorry, you can do nothing about it. Some European organ has taken this decision. You just have to vote for the law that will make it effective in our country. And if you don't I'll be back to give you another chance.
And nowadays of course most of the power lays with the bankers ....

 

[Hendrik_2000]

[
Y

Thats good to know, however I understood it to be the inappropriate prescribing of drugs rather than overcharging which I daresay happens. At the time i was reading an article on Chinas healthcare, the government had set recommended prices for each drug, guidelines outlining the types and number of drugs to be
prescribed for each illness was lacking.

Earlier you said I should be comparing Chinas progress with other developing countries. While there has been significant improvement in healthcare personnel, at the leading edge of surgical operations I think it lags behind India which has become one of the places westerners go to for heart ops etc.





Given the iffy nature on quality control, I;m not so sure about the tendering to supply drugs though.

Remember the SFDA whose head was executed a few years back because of the melamine scandal. Even now one still hears of outbreaks of melamine in milk.

Well the SFDA still figures in phamaceutical scandals as reported by Reuters

Special Report: China's "wild east" drug store

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Heres another article outling on how the Chinese see the supply of phamaceauticals inside China.

written by Prof Jian Qiang Hu and Asso Prof Yue Dai of Fudan Uni.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I read the summary it doesn't tell me any more than I already know. It all problem of developmental stages of nascent industry but at least they make it accessible and cheap enough for average Zhang to use it

You think the practice of over prescribing doesn't happened in the west well you probably never read newspaper ergh web. A simple search in the web show you that even US doctor over prescribe drug

You are apparently unaware of the going on in pharmaceutical industry. Doctors are lack of time and constantly bombarded with less than truth ad. Typically big Pharma employed detailer mostly young and gorgeous woman who visit doctor to informed them about the latest in drug. No they don't offer bribe or sex but they will ask doctor to prescribe their dug and BTW we have presentation next week in Bahamas, or Vegas or Florida if you meet your quota we will invite you to the next presentation all expenses paid for.

US docs are overprescribing drugs, study finds

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

MSNBC

U.S. doctors are too quick to reach for their prescription pads, according to a new report urging them to think more about side effects and non-drug alternatives.

Pharmaceutical industry is famous with price fixing and gouging consumer with ever increasing drug prices well beyond inflation rate.Some people on retirement income have to choose between food and drug

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Going back in time, there were 19 price increases in March 2009, but the average price hike was 6.0 percent. In March 2008, prices rose on just eight meds at an average increase of 9 percent, while in March 2007, there were price increases on seven drugs at an average of 4.9 percent. And in March 2006, drugmakers boosted prices on seven meds at an average 5.8 percent.

Last month, Marsh found price hikes for six meds, averaging 9 percent. And in January, there were 59 price increases, averaging 8.2 percent. Combining prices hikes for the first quarter, the year-to-date price increases amount to 7.9 percent. This amounts to the largest first-quarter price hike over the past decade – last year, the first-quarter price increases amounted to 7 percent and were

You cite the fact that India can attract western consumer as a proof that India has better health care than China well you are wrong.

Western clientele also went to Mexico and Thailand for the same reason why they went to India namely Cheap. Cheap, Cheap. not because they are better

Those clientele cannot afford surgery in their home country because they simply too expensive and long wait But they are rolling the dice with their live by visiting these country.

It is more testament to the failure of health care in their home country rather than superiority of Indian health care system

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Factors that have led to the increasing popularity of medical travel include the high cost of health care, long wait times for certain procedures, the ease and affordability of international travel, and improvements in both technology and standards of care in many countries.[4] The avoidance of waiting times is the leading factor for medical tourism from the UK, whereas in the US, the main reason is cheaper prices abroad. In 2009, there were 60,000 patients going for treatment abroad in the UK.[5]

Many surgery procedures performed in medical tourism destinations cost a fraction of the price they do in the First World. For example a liver transplant that cost $300,000 USD in America cost about $91,000 USD in Taiwan.[6] A large draw to medical travel is convenience and speed. Countries that operate public health-care systems are often so taxed that it can take considerable time to get non-urgent medical care. Using Canada as an example, an estimated 782,936 Canadians spent time on medical waiting lists in 2005, waiting an average of 9.4 weeks.[7] Canada has set waiting-time benchmarks, e. g. 26 weeks for a hip replacement and 16 weeks for cataract surgery, for non-urgent medical procedures.[8]

 

[jackliu]

It is funny, pushing excessive drugs is actually more of 1st world problem, China didn't have none of this problem when it was poor, such problem is so much more worse in developed world.

Not sure what Bladerunner was trying to achieve here, did you wanted to support your thesis that China is poor? If so, this is a really bad issue support whatever you trying to say.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The media is at it again. The reason why currency is the issue is because the media helped create it. Maybe they should note China doesn't steal jobs. American corporations send them over there because they want to exploit cheap labor so they can make every cent they can. This just shows how the media creates their own news instead of reporting it. Of course it is also average joe American in denial that they don't want to be like every other corrupt country where politicians and business screw the workers for their own greed. That's the way politicians and business like it when they never get blamed for what they started. But now their own monster threatens their profits from exploiting cheap labor overseas by increasing costs outsourcing.

 

[bladerunner]

First of all you were comparing the healthcare system of China and other developing country. You choose to compare it to India. Plus what you said is true India does offer Western clientele medical services but does that make it better then china? Is the Western clientele rich or the poor who can't pay for the services of there home country like the USA? Just because you chase after Western clientele it doesn't made it better. If we comparing the healthcare of the two country there is no comparison.

I had considered Cuba but discarded the idea because of its size compared with China. However Cuba like China has had everything stacked against, it has done remarkably well. The article below while considerably dated, highlights the remarkable achievement by Cuba

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

"The Cuban health care system is respected around the world, and is literally decades more advanced than any system found in Latin America. For this reason, the Cuban system serves as a model for Third World developing nations.

Before the Revolution, most people could not afford proper medical care. In the rural areas there were few doctors and in the big cities, only the upper classes could afford health care.

All of this has now changed. Cuba has made excellent progress through its family doctor program. Small towns all have doctors the people can visit for free. Cuba now has one doctor per 200 citizens, compared to one per 400 in the US. The doctors live in the buildings their offices are in and keep track of the histories and needs of all their patients.

Cuba stands out statistically as well. Its infant mortality rate of 8/1,000 is second to none in Latin America, and is near that of the United States. The life expectancy of the average Cuban is also far longer than that of people in any other Latin American country.

Cuba has an excellent medical education program. It has 21 medical schools which graduate 4,000 doctors annually. All education is free. Before it lost Soviet aid, Cuba trained 20,000 students from Third World countries and required them to return to their own countries, where doctors are far more needed than in countries where they can command large salaries.

Doctors from Cuba are also sent to assist in poorer nations. Cuba has sent its doctors to many African nations and has established hospitals in other countries.

The health situation has worsened without Soviet aid. Cubans are getting far less to eat, which is bringing back old health problems. When the Special Period was at its worst, the US passed the Torricelli Act, prohibiting medicine from being sold to Cuba.

America's blockade and the end of aid has caused severe shortages of medical supplies. Everywhere doctors are improvising new methods of meeting the shortage, but Cuba not only cannot get foreign medicine, its need for dollars even forces it to sell much of its domestically produced medicine.



As a Sidenote, "And as with so many things in Cuba, the state health service offers some amazing paradoxes: you may have problems obtaining medicine, but getting a bust lift, or even a sex change, is no problem, and moreover, it is free of charge".

I think China frowns upon this "boy love" thing or what ever you call it, therefore I cant see that happening in China.

 

[bladerunner]

It is funny, pushing excessive drugs is actually more of 1st world problem, China didn't have none of this problem when it was poor, such problem is so much more worse in developed world.

Not sure what Bladerunner was trying to achieve here, did you wanted to support your thesis that China is poor? If so, this is a really bad issue support whatever you trying to say.

I was just responding to the negative comments over Europe's financial pickle. China, despite its admirable progress has still got a long ways to go yet. Her current reserves and trade surpluses won't be nearly enough to cover what she has yet to do and i decided to choose health, which is one of the financial soak holes for any country to illustrate my point.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

I was just responding to the negative comments over Europe's financial pickle. China, despite its admirable progress has still got a long ways to go yet. Her current reserves and trade surpluses won't be nearly enough to cover what she has yet to do and i decided to choose health, which is one of the financial soak holes for any country to illustrate my point.

Well not if you design your Welfare system intelligently. US health care is in a mess because of ideological strait jacket socalled free market principle and the employment based insurance meaning you only get better rate of insurance if you work and eligible for group rate.

But the main cause is payment by third party(insurer) that have no incentive to put a limit on health expense How can you put a limit on love one suffering from sickness.

Because it is privates it cause duplication of services and fragmentation of the health care system.

You mention Cuba but Cuba is poor country and almost failed state except for their health care system. Better example would be Singapore . Singapore design their welfare system efficiently because it put the onus on individual responsibility. She can afford to pay 100% for the health care but choose not too. The argument is by relieving the individual of their familial responsibly, gradually it will weaken the filial Chinese duty toward parents Read this article by Washington Post

So why should China copy Cuba an alien culture. Singapore is more than happy to advise the Chinese on design of efficient health care not that China need help. Singapore elite may dispose toward the West specially the uppity young professional who went to school in the west. But there is still well of sympathy to China among the older generation. Plus they have close relationship among the bureaucrat. Back in th 80 when China start opening up she ask Singapore to send a team to advise them on designing SEZ. Singapore then send the architect of Singapore economy Dr Go Keng Swee and his full team to spend years in China advising the bureaucrat how to design regulation system for SEZ

So how does Singapore do it?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

In health circles it's always conservatives who bring up Singapore, because of the primacy it places on personal responsibility. According to Phua Kai Hong of the National University of Singapore, roughly one-third of health spending in Singapore is paid directly by individuals (who typically buy catastrophic coverage as well); in the United States, by contrast, nearly 90 percent is picked up by third-party insurers, employers and governments. Singaporeans make these payments out of earnings as well as from health savings accounts. The system is chock-full of incentives for thrift. If you want a private hospital room, for example, you pay through the nose; most people choose less expensive wards.

Conservatives are right: Singaporeans have the kind of "skin in the game" that promotes prudence.

But that's only half the story. There's also a massive public role. For starters, adequate savings for retirement and health expenses are mandated by government (employees must sock away 20 percent of earnings each year, to which employers add 13 percent). Public hospitals provide 80 percent of the acute care, setting affordable pricing benchmarks with which private providers compete. Supply-side rules that favor training new family doctors over pricey specialists are more extensive than similar notions Hillary Clinton pushed in the '90s. And in Singapore, if a child is obese, they don't get Rose Garden exhortations from the first lady. They get no lunch and mandatory exercise periods during school.

There's more (including an ample safety net for the poor), but you get the gist: Singapore achieves world-class results thanks to a bold, unconventional synthesis of liberal and conservative approaches. It's further to the left and further to the right than what President Obama or his foes now seek. The island's real ideology is pragmatic problem-solving. It works thanks to cultural traditions that let this eclectic blend flourish. The system is nurtured by talented, highly paid officials who have the luxury of governing for the long-term without being buffeted much by politics.

Why US health care is in a mess

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

America's health care system is really a mess. It is partly free enterprise, partly state-subsidized and overall highly inefficient in delivering quality care at a reasonable price.

I am a big fan of the free market. I think it has an almost magical ability to allocate resources and generate growth. But precisely because it is so powerful, in places where it doesn't work well, it can cause huge distortions.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist, Kenneth Arrow, outlined in the 1960s why markets don't work well when it comes to health care. He explained that people don't know when they will need health care and that when they do need it, the cost is often prohibitive. This means you need some kind of insurance or a government-run system.

Now, if we decided as a society that it is OK that when people suddenly discover they need health care, they can only get it if they can pay for it - that would work, but it would mean that the vast majority of Americans wouldn't be able to pay for a triple bypass or a hip replacement when they would need it.

 

[jackliu]

I was just responding to the negative comments over Europe's financial pickle. China, despite its admirable progress has still got a long ways to go yet. Her current reserves and trade surpluses won't be nearly enough to cover what she has yet to do and i decided to choose health, which is one of the financial soak holes for any country to illustrate my point.

Well DUH... 30 years ago, China's economy was in FAR worse shape, and they were able to get through it. There is just no evidence that they will fail this time. Most of their current economic problem has directly to do with their fast growth, which means most of their problem today is because they were too successful in the past decade.

But those gloom and doom "China experts" like Gordon Chang cannot see anything for China besides imminent failure. You should know, judging by your posting, you should be one of his biggest fans.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!