lives contract a serious disease. But when and who will catch the disease is unpredictable. Meanwhile, the longer one lives, the larger the possibility is for him or her to catch such diseases. If the government and society can set up a mechanism to help the people cope with the situation when they catch such diseases, then everyone is able to receive timely treatment when misfortune befalls them. Although it's not the case that everyone will catch fatal diseases in his or her lifetime and despite the fact that expenses for medical care differ for everyone, such a mechanism will help to equip all people with the opportunity to feel secure.

In the field of healthcare, it should be the equal opportunity of this kind of security, rather than medical resources or final expenses on medical care, which reflects social equality. The largest problem lies in the treatment of serious diseases. If the problem concerning non-serious diseases is solved first, without a risk-sharing for serious diseases, especially fatal diseases, the problem of high medical expenses can't be solved fundamentally.

The relationship between the government and the market is an important part of the medical care system, which is seen in almost all crucial issues in this area. Thus, to properly tackle the relationship between the two will help to promote the medical reform. In the new round of medical reform, it's necessary to set up a competition-based partnership between the government and the market. What this means is to encourage the two to compete and also cooperate against the background of the government's public interest orientation and monitoring, as well as the market's profit and efficiency-oriented operation. It's unwise to exclude one side or to replace one with the other. It's important to coordinate the government and the market. While the government is still weak in market regulation and short of experience, it's necessary to slow down the pace of the market-geared reform of healthcare services. It's important to create good conditions, accumulate experience and make good preparation to deal with potential problems. Only in this way can China survive the fierce wave of marketization and do a good job in protecting the health and safety of its people.

Resource Shortages the Key

By ZHOU QIREN

In recent years, issues on the medical system reform have gained much attention. This is related to the rapid development of other economic sectors, for example, manufacturing, agriculture and domestic trade. The people's demand for food, clothing and even education has been satisfied, in terms of quantity. Against this background, inefficient medical services, a problem that has long remained unsolved, have become more of an issue.

Some people criticize my emphasis on the role of the market, but I still believe that both the government and the market have a role to play. Currently, we need to discuss the basic problem, that is, what factors are preventing people from enjoying satisfactory medical services, what has led to the present conundrum in China's medical system and what is the way out?

From 1978 to 2005, China had increased its input in healthcare services 77-fold and per-capita health expenses had jumped 198-fold. Yet numbers of hospitals, clinics, as well as doctors and nurses, had only doubled or tripled. Why is there such a striking contrast? Is it true that China suffers a scarcity of doctors and other health service resources to meet the rising demand for medical care?

However, from 1997 to 2005, China's medical schools and colleges accumulatively recruited 854,000 students, but at the same time, the number of doctors fell by 47,000. On one hand, long queues are frequently seen in big hospitals and doctors are overworked; on the other hand, medical students can't find suitable employment. Something must be wrong between the supply and demand of medical services.

Now we find that, although China's reform and opening-up policy has been conducted for three decades, most hospitals are still state-owned, with hospital heads being appointed by the government and the size of medical staff under government control. At the same time, prices of medical services and medicines are not determined by the market, but result from government administrative adjustments. The only thing that the government will not interfere with is the financial resources of these hospitals. Government allocations only account for 5 percent of the total income of state-owned hospitals. Some people criticize the marketization of medical services. I'm puzzled: This is by no means marketization.

My view is to mobilize all the resources that can be mobilized. No matter how the medical reform is to be conducted-marketization, nationalization or privatization, I will not oppose it, as long as this principle is followed: A range of resources should be considered for service supply. This is the basic principle of how to deal with the current problems in medical system reform.