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Healthy antidote

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-20 07:50

The national basic medicine system that was initiated on Tuesday is a big step forward in cutting healthcare inflation and making medical bills affordable for all. The first essential medicine list published along with the system can be considered as one way of ending hospitals' reliance on sale of medicines for profit.

Prohibitive medical bills in recent years point to an unreasonable medicine supply system, which allowed hospitals to rely on medicine sales for profit: The more medicines, expensive medicines in particular, they sell, the more profits they will make. There were scandals that some doctors received kickbacks from medicine producers for prescribing their drugs.

Besides soaring medical bills, such practices posed a serious threat to the long-term health of many patients. Some doctors abused their authority to prescribe the most expensive drugs rather than the right ones for patients in order to get kickbacks. Over-medication and overuse of antibiotics turned out to be common problems.

The basic medicine system will prohibit doctors from using more expensive unlisted drugs. Listed ones will be sold at grassroots health facilities with zero cost added, which is expected to slash expenses for patients and, at the same time, stop over-medication and overuse of antibiotics.

The unhealthy tendencies in the field of healthcare, soaring medicine prices in particular, have proved that it is a disaster to turn hospitals into a profit-making player in the market.

High medical bills would make it difficult for the universal healthcare security net to cover 90 percent of the population by 2011. The situation of pharmaceutical companies passing their high costs onto the government-supported security system must be changed.

In this sense, the initiation of the essential medicine list paves the way for further reform of the healthcare system, which aims to meet the basic needs of all. The fact that medical expenses involving all the listed medicines can be reimbursed from the basic medical insurance account points to a virtuous cycle from reasonable and affordable medication to the universal healthcare security system.

Without the profits from the sale of medicines, hospitals will have to get subsidies from all levels of government to survive. Allocation from State funds for healthcare service is one way of letting as many people as possible share the fruits of economic reform.

If it has required great determination as well as effort and wisdom to design such a system, it will need even more effort at all levels of government to ensure its smooth implementation. There will certainly be many stumbling blocks to overcome before the system is in place all over the country within three years.

(China Daily 08/20/2009 page8)