| Please don't take this the wrong way, but I felt kind of misled by your post by the time I finished reading it. US healthcare is notorious for its problems so I was ready to believe your initial statement. But actually you say: 1. "Nobody goes bankrupt from going to the doctor", but "if you get rare / serious condition you can still get ruined financially". Those two statements are direct contradictions of each other. 2. "you can walk into the hospital and be seen pretty quickly" but also ... "it's not unheard of that critical treatment is delayed because the patient is trying to find money". Again, being seen pretty quickly and not being seen because you're trying to find money are in direct conflict. Nowadays more and more people begin to purchase commercial health insurance - which are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the U.S. ones Everything in China is cheaper than in the US. It's still a poor country. Honestly both systems sound just as bad as each other, or rather, the Chinese system sounds far worse. I'd rather be alive and bankrupt, rather than refused treatment entirely, because I didn't have the cash at the exact moment I fell ill or there was some SNAFU with payment systems. If more and more people choose to buy health insurance, that sounds like China is well on the way to a US style model as it develops. |