Healthcare in China

Healthcare in China has undergone basic changes over the twentieth century and twenty-first century, using both public and private medical institutions and insurance programs. As of 2020, about 95% of the population has at least basic health insurance coverage.^[1]

Basic medical insurance includes two systems: employee medical insurance and resident medical insurance. The former covers the urban employed population, and the latter covers the urban non-employed population and the rural population. A total of 25% of the people covered by the basic medical insurance participated in the employee medical insurance, a total of 344 million people; 75% participated in the residents' medical insurance, a total of 1.017 billion people.^[1] Medical assistance has subsidized 78 million poor people to participate in basic medical insurance, and the coverage of poor people has stabilized at over 99.9%.^[1]

Despite this, Public health insurance generally only covers about half of medical costs, with the proportion lower for serious or chronic illnesses. Under the "Healthy China 2020" initiative, China undertook an effort to cut healthcare costs, requiring insurance to cover 70% of costs by the end of 2018.^[2][3] In addition, there are policies such as critical illness insurance and medical assistance. China's commercial health insurance is also proliferating. In 2020, the country's commercial health insurance premium income amounted to 817.3 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 20%. China's coverage of maternity insurance has continued to expand, by the end of 2020, 235.673 million people were insured under maternity insurance.^[1]

The country maintains two parallel medical systems, one for modern or Western medicine, and one for Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Some Chinese consider TCM backward and ineffective, others consider it inexpensive, effective, and culturally appropriate. China has also become a major market for health-related multinational companies. Companies such as AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, and Merck entered the Chinese market and have experienced explosive growth. China has also become a growing hub for healthcare research and development.^[4] According to Sam Radwan of ENHANCE International, China's projected healthcare spending in 2050 may exceed Germany's entire 2020 gross domestic product.^[5]

The above only applies to Mainland China. The special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau maintain their own separate universal healthcare systems.^[6] Healthcare in Taiwan is administered by the Republic of China's Ministry of Health and Welfare.