I, personally, think it's worse. For one thing, the prevalence of Traditional Chinese Medicine almost automatically makes it worse, because a lot of times, you're not even getting real treatment. Even when you're going to a real hospital, sometimes, you'll be prescribed Traditional Chinese Medicine that doesn't actually do much of anything. I was lucky I was smart enough to bring some baby Tylenol from America when I went to China, because when my son got sick there, all the hospital would give us is "dandelion drink".
It's not significantly cheaper than America. At least, in America, you buy insurance where you live and work, and it covers anything you need done where you live and work. In China, your health insurance is tied to your hukou. So even if I was working in Shenzhen, for example, if my hukou is in Shandong, then insurance only covers hospital visits in Shandong. So I either have to travel across half a country and use up what few vacation days I probably don't have, or pay out of pocket. And if you're paying out of pocket, hospital visits are still super expensive.
I've talked before about how hospitals will just throw you out if you don't have money. So that often means letting entirely treatable conditions kill you. Like, there was a story on Legal Report, a Chinese TV show about true crime cases in China, where the police rescued a newborn baby from some human traffickers. But the newborn was drugged or something and was having a bad reaction, so they had to take him to NICU right away, where a single day's stay cost 8000 RMB. And the police hadn't figured out who this baby's parents were, so they had no choice but to get all the policemen in the station to crowdfund that baby's NICU stay one day at a time. And one of them said in the TV interview that they only made 1700 RMB a month, but they had to do this, because they couldn't watch that baby die. And the government was actively promoting this as some sort of feel good story??
And if you do go into debt for your medical expenses, in America at least, you can declare bankruptcy, take a it to your credit score, and then start work on building it back up again. And it's honestly not that hard to get it back to reasonable standards, from what I know from my friends who've faced hard financial times before. But in China, if you owe a debt of, say, 200K, and can't pay it back, you get put on the credit blacklist, and there's no way to get off of that list unless you pay the whole thing back, plus interest.
All in all, pretty much the only reason the health care system in China has any advantage to America at all is that it is super easy to get an abortion.
It seems like the health care system is just as bad over there as it is in the US. Is that an accurate assessment or is this just an outlier?
I, personally, think it's worse. For one thing, the prevalence of Traditional Chinese Medicine almost automatically makes it worse, because a lot of times, you're not even getting real treatment. Even when you're going to a real hospital, sometimes, you'll be prescribed Traditional Chinese Medicine that doesn't actually do much of anything. I was lucky I was smart enough to bring some baby Tylenol from America when I went to China, because when my son got sick there, all the hospital would give us is "dandelion drink".
It's not significantly cheaper than America. At least, in America, you buy insurance where you live and work, and it covers anything you need done where you live and work. In China, your health insurance is tied to your hukou. So even if I was working in Shenzhen, for example, if my hukou is in Shandong, then insurance only covers hospital visits in Shandong. So I either have to travel across half a country and use up what few vacation days I probably don't have, or pay out of pocket. And if you're paying out of pocket, hospital visits are still super expensive.
I've talked before about how hospitals will just throw you out if you don't have money. So that often means letting entirely treatable conditions kill you. Like, there was a story on Legal Report, a Chinese TV show about true crime cases in China, where the police rescued a newborn baby from some human traffickers. But the newborn was drugged or something and was having a bad reaction, so they had to take him to NICU right away, where a single day's stay cost 8000 RMB. And the police hadn't figured out who this baby's parents were, so they had no choice but to get all the policemen in the station to crowdfund that baby's NICU stay one day at a time. And one of them said in the TV interview that they only made 1700 RMB a month, but they had to do this, because they couldn't watch that baby die. And the government was actively promoting this as some sort of feel good story??
And if you do go into debt for your medical expenses, in America at least, you can declare bankruptcy, take a it to your credit score, and then start work on building it back up again. And it's honestly not that hard to get it back to reasonable standards, from what I know from my friends who've faced hard financial times before. But in China, if you owe a debt of, say, 200K, and can't pay it back, you get put on the credit blacklist, and there's no way to get off of that list unless you pay the whole thing back, plus interest.
All in all, pretty much the only reason the health care system in China has any advantage to America at all is that it is super easy to get an abortion.
That was very insightful, thanks for taking the time to respond!