Chinese healthcare policy: The occidental European influence on the restructuring after 1978

Abstract

This paper intends to study the health policy in China. It starts from the hypothesis that the changes brought by the political and opening-up reform after 1978 are not configured by an “Americanization” process (implementation of the neoliberal project), but by an European occidentalization process based on the social services of the Welfare State of the “thirty glorious years”. This process has a contributory character, through the introduction of social insurance in the constitution of China’s social security system and, consequently, in its health systems. This results in a throwback in the health policy’s collective and universal character, with problems to face regarding access and the financing of the health systems existing today, if we compare the Maoist period with the period after the political and opening-up reform launched by Deng Xiaoping. This situation brings to China the big challenge of creating strategies and reforms to ensure coverage of access to health services and equipment to its large population.