One can hear the 'tut-tuts' from Americans as they read about Chinese abusing free market conditions.
A pity these same Americans do not recognize that this is also quite normal amongst giant American corporations such as Facebook, Amazon, oil companies - all of which abuse public trust by focusing on enriching the C-suite and large share holders at the expense of sound ethical behavior.
Clearly, China has proven that unregulated capitalism is a license to steal.
6
I just hope the Chinese model is not the future for the U.S. under GOP leadership.
2
Thanks, NYT. For the first time in a while, I feel great about the American health care system.
The profound level of corruption in China extends from top to bottom. The only problem for Putian Hospitals is that they got caught. In a country so damaged by corruption at every level, Putain became a focal point for the rage that swirls throughout that sad and damaged country.
The Chinese people have focused on making money for three decades. To achieve it, they surrendered every other part of their lives, from health to justice to the environment and beyond. The CP allows just enough room in the system for the people to squeal and enough control to make certain nothing changes.
9
@ijarvis
(Last response I promise.) The Chinese have a concept “the mandate of Heaven” when the rulers losses that he is done quickly enough. The China you describe does not fit existing authoritarian China (a condition it has always had) were dissidents are rare and satisfaction high, can the same be said for the US? Don’t worry about the Chinese they can take care of themselves when needed.
2
@ijarvis
The profound level of corruption in China extends from top to bottom.
How is China different than the US, then?
3
It’s called advertising and some believe some don’t.
The common practice in China when ill is to seek out the next level up in a larger city and if very serious to go to Beijing, Shanghai, or at least the provincial capitol. The problem would be that the insurance program that will pay part, not all of your cost, will be tied to hukou registration i.e. to a locale. To Beijing – pay for all yourself.
Our private hospital doctor saved my life by identifying my breathing problem as tuberculous pleural effusion but then off to the public reparatory hospital in city for week of treatment and six month follow up to meet government standards. Not too shabby.
2
Interesting juxtaposition.
When Hospitals Merge to Save Money, Patients Often Pay More
Scandals Catch Up to Private Chinese Hospitals, After Fortunes Are Made
6
China's health care system is a disaster that almost makes ours look good by comparison. Cuba, another communist state, has done much more with much less.
1
@Kenneth
A mixed bag actually some sound some not. Not uncommon for Westerners to travel to China for treatment. A better shot than Mexico most likely and the big cities solid establishments. I have VA coverage and keep it alive for financial reasons but no fear of Chinese doctors in public institutions.
Ideology has little to do with medicine as you seem to note.
1
Fraud and scandals at unregulated private companies? Shocking. Something like that would never happen in the West.
9
China “has been poor for too long,” according to its legendary leader, Deng Xiaoping, who was father of the economic reform. “To get rich is glorious” he declared in 1978 -- injecting a dose of capitalism into the country’s communist system, prompting many Chinese to get out of poverty and become rich.
There are two ways to get rich – to climb the company ladder in the private sector, or to rise through the ranks of a state-owned enterprise.
Those who lack a degree or skills, try to start their own “business” in the underworld, luring investors and customers by promising them the moon.
The success story of the Putian network of private healthcare providers began with Chen Deliang, a barefoot doctor, who took a folk remedy for skin disease and grew it into a small business, which he expanded together with several partners, marketing treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. They have made billions of yuan off people who suffer from a disease and are anxious to get treatment.
While Xi Jinping targets corrupt officials, his minions turn a blind eye to charlatans and crooks, who enrich themselves at the expense of ignorant people.
7
That is why the liar-in-chief and his GOP enablers and minions what to deregulate everything, especially the healthcare system. After all you don't want a government bureaucrat and other regulations to stand between you and your healthcare provider who may be the only one willing, able, and capable of offering you hope!
4
Communism/Capitalism/Putian/Hospital Corporation of America...
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
10
Trumpian.
4
In a country where all the leaders openly corrupt, it follows that businessmen are equally corrupt. With Trump, it's not just potential but given the open corruption of his appointees, campaign staff, and lawyers, we are already deep down the same path.
17
" While public hospitals are subject to tighter scrutiny at the national level, private hospitals like those in the Putian network are largely overseen by local governments..."
A classic example of what inevitably happens when capitalism is allowed to run rampant with out meaningful and enforced REGULATION.
Billionaires and their dead, injured or sickened prey.
In a big country, we need big regulations, big numbers of inspectors, and big big big big big penalties.
Call it big government.
Only big government can provide big protection.
25
@lkent
This is not capitalism. This is state-sponsored corruption. According to this article, this company accounts for half of ad-revenue on Baidu, China's Google (remember no google, no facebook, no twitter in China, only Baidu, Weibo, etc...). Baidu is state approved monopoly and censored all negative news on this enterprise. With no free flow of information patients could not validate legitimacy of this hospital.
Blaming capitalism is just a shallow cop-out.
2
@lkent
Capitalism, like Communism, is just a set of ideas based on an idealistic worldview. When either comes in contact with reality, their limitations become obvious. Now how a society handles or responds to those limitations makes all the difference.
Capitalism arising from a more individual participation does better than Communism because it is easier to self-correct local problems quickly, while Communism being centralized has more inertia before it can respond to similar problems.
Now if a society handles the imperfections of either system poorly, you will have disaster. Put bluntly, Capitalism and Communism are like two religions, they make sense in the abstract and with the assumption all humans are fundamentally rational and virtuous beings. Both sides rage at each other like religions do about ideas different from their own. Charlatans preach the perfectness of each religion. Rubes and dupes fall for the nice stories and spread the slogans and myths as if they are real experiences. And so on.
Either system needs rule of law, humility (avoidance of hubris mainly) and care for humanity to work in a long term manner. Every Capitalist nation which has lasted more than say 60 years (about an adult lifetime) has used socialist ideas where they work better and market-based ideas where they work best. Those who didn't collapsed under the weight of reality being unsustainable by their stubborn ideology. Look at Brownback's Kansas.
4
Unfettered, Free Market Capitalism...Get yours, Today!
11
Modern version of traveling medicine shows we fixed what ailed ya
6
....let's see - we have a Communist country dedicated to undermining democracy throughout the world. It continues displaying aggressive behaviour in its region - the South China Sea and Taiwan.
It's the leading counterfeiter on the globe - the majority of counterfeit goods manufactured in China has the unwritten approval of the government.
The corruption is rampant on every level in China and the government controls and has access to all corporate data and personal information.
It's an insidious government that represses it's people and still sends it's political prisoners to death and work camps.
I don't believe data or information coming out of China - no one knows what the truth is there.....no one ever will.
15
@JMS
Mao was interested in world revolution but it disappears under Deng Xiaoping and thereafter. It is the US that carries the ideological baggage polished up with the neo-con ‘change the regime’ e.g. Iraq, Libya and more but all running in tradition of Central American client states. And for military intervention and placement of ‘bases’ US wins again. China see the China Sea as a buttress against the US Navy and Taiwan as part of China is that strange? What has these to do with hospitals?
1
@JMS
You are among many of the westerners brainwashed by your so-called “Freedom”. I will assume you’ve never been anywhere close to China and it amuses me how you can just throw out complex issues like Taiwan and just spin it into something that fits your narrative. It’s better we have a firewall to stop these blatant ignorance and arrogance from crossing over. At the meantime have fun soaking yourself in that western propaganda. Your kind of people is the reason why we don’t get along.
3
We can not compare health systems of the 300 millions population in capitalistic USA with the 1.5 billion population of the communist- neocapitalistic China .
I would have appreciated more statistic results and outcome from these Putian hospitals, as well as more documentation, beside the huge number of hospitals, of number of beds , of admissions, of procedures performed , outcomes , description of departments, of employees , etc.
We can not judge a system from anecdotal cases .
There are major problems even in the USA , where healthcare is unaffordable and not accessible for millions .
5
The deception and fraud that seems rampant in China, even when human lives are at stake, is profoundly disturbing. Introducing the element of capitalism has made people even more dishonest. Our government and the world, needs to put pressure on the Chinese government to modernize a mentality based on greed and arrogance. A modern society doesn’t just mean having marble bathrooms and an luxury car. It means most people serving the public have and deserve the trust of society.
5
@SBC
First we need to put pressure on our own corrupt government, driven by lobbyists and donors instead of what is needed for the public, to modernize a mentality based on greed and arrogance -- both of which Trump is a prime example.
1
“The country’s medical system was so backward,” Mr. Chen said. It is still today for sure. Just like our bloated healthcare industry, China is no exception to making money in the name of wellness. If it takes 200 years to make our healthcare industry today, it will take 200 years and more to make Chinese healthcare comparable to a healthcare system in a developed country. The problem is that here is no shortcut to develop a healthcare system in any country.
5
This is a good example of why "free markets", which work well for consumer goods like audio equipment, do not work for medical care. One fundamental axiom of free-market theory is that all participants have full knowledge of the market. This can never be the case with medical care, as there is an inherent asymmetry of information between patients (who may be desperate, in addition) and providers. The market incentives to maintain a high standard of care are not effective, so fraud and malpractice thrive.
52
@seattle expat This is the same reason my public health professor brought up as why medical care cannot and should not be subject to free markets with little regulation. With audio equipment, even with asymmetric knowledge, the most people will lose is money, not their health or lives.
7
We have our share of quacks here in the US. Weight loss is a national obsession, TV adds touting ineffective and downright dangerous treatments and therapies. Desperate people are willing to believe anything. There's a multi-billion dollar industry built on supplements, very few if any efficacious. I was just watching the news this morning and the commercials were all about inversion therapy, not something you want to try if you are obese and virility treatments.
21
Obesity infomercials and botched surgeries or fake cancer treatments that cost lives are not exactly the same kind of quacks.
5
@Nev Gill Yes, and we should go after the quacks here to the same degree. However, rules passed by industry groups that most of the public doesn't even know about curtail whether and how much actions can be taken. For instance, since herbal supplements are considered a "food", they cannot be regulated the same as prescription medicines. So even if an herb actually works for a specific condition, there is little mandating quality control such the assuring what you see on the label is what you get, consistent purity/ strength from bottle to bottle, etc.
(The paternal side of my family were traditional Chinese herbalists whereas I practice Western medicine. Back in the day, they would gather the herbs/ visit farms themselves to assure themselves and their patients of purity levels.)
2