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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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China
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Very interesting video. Couple of thoughts:
If 95% of people in China have public health insurance, who are the other 5%? One would assume these are privately insured wealthier individuals?
I personally would much prefer the Chinese system with their large, comprehensive hospitals. I don't like the family doctor system we have where I live.
The family doctor system leads to all of these fragmented healthcare locations that are basically run like small businesses, which are not under one unified system so there is a lot more bureaucracy and delay.
And it's a horrible hassle when you get referred from one place to another, on opposite sides of town or even in another city, everything takes so much longer, sometimes they're not even open at the same time, and each of them takes their cut (luckily the insurance pays most of it, but you still often have to pay a small token fee, and that can add up).
China approaches healthcare the same way they approach industry: vertical integration. If all the logistics are in-house and it all runs on the same system under the same roof, centrally planned, it is so much more efficient, time and cost-wise.
I don't think the fact that China doesn't do Yelp reviews for its doctors is a bad thing, quite the contrary. I personally find this American trend (sadly being adopted in Europe now too) of rating every service you use (and every person who serves you) on some online platform really vulgar and disgusting.
It's one more step in the commodification of everything, including people. I am not interested in grading or writing performance reviews for random workers and i think it fosters a very toxic culture that is obsessed with seeking approval from anonymous entitled assholes online.
If China had to have a Western family doctor system, it would be absolute chaos.
The theoretical benefit of the family doctor system is its individualized nature. Of course, this individualized bit is only beneficial if you have the wealth to guarantee a good family doctor.
The bigger trade-off is its inefficiency, especially as population sizes get larger. You need referrals out for everything, and each referral takes a month or more.