中英医疗制度对比 英文版

盛雪20110100137 Comparison of Healthcare System between the UK and China

In Britain’s healthcare system, National Health Service(NHS) is so significant a existence to be ignored. It you happen to have watched the open ceremony of 2012 London Olympics, you may still remember one splendid performance, which aims to pay tribute to those nurses from NHS who have been working hard for the nation’s health since 1944. As regards China, a nation with a much harder life, its healthcare system is not that mature or excellent. But the whole nation have witnessed China’s progress in modifying its medical-care system. The New Rural Cooperative Medical Care System, as a 2005 initiative to overhaul the healthcare system, is a strong evidence for China’s good job in promoting its medical care system. I will compare the healthcare system in the UK and China in three aspects as follows: operating ideas, operating patterns and challenges.

Operating ideas:

Britain: NHS’s core idea is to provide universal healthcare to all the legal residents in UK. It is primarily funded through the general taxation system. And it is believed in Britain that healthcare system shall be comprised of three sub-systems: local primary service, regional treatment service and central hospital service.

China: Cooperative Medical System (CMS) is established to offer basic medical security for all the workers both in cities and in towns. Medical expenditure of each individual is shared proportionally by the country, enterprise and the employee himself. Besides How much the employee would benefit from the system depends properly on how much he contributes to the nation. Furthermore, it is required in China that local administrations, enterprises and agencies shall anticipate in local Social Medical Insurance, to standardize the amount of money people shall pay and help implement related policies.

Comparison: Three major differences can be concluded from their operating ideas. Compared with the ideas of China, Britain’s vision has a wider coverage. NHS

manages to serve all the people in the UK, including farmers, people without ability to work as well as disadvantaged groups, some of which are neglected by China’s healthcare system. Secondly, NHS has various medical services, like primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology, and dentistry. As to china, only basic medical insurance is available instead of actual treatment services. At last, funding for each system is obvious not alike, which will be discussed further.

Operating patterns:

Britain: NHS consists of organizations at all levels: public hospitals, all sorts of clinics, Community Medical Center and Nursing Home etc. These organizations work for British people, concerning with daily medical services, with both the consultation and reservation fee not required. More specifically, everybody in Britain can register with a local GP, namely General Practitioner, who is well-trained in medical and can give advice and treat basic illnesses. GPs are paid by the government according to how many their patients they have. Their services come free of charge.

In Britain, Social Security Tax, as an income for government, is levied exclusively for NHS. 82% of NHS funding comes from government fiscal allocation, 12% from National Insurance contributions. Other less significant sources of income include charging overseas visitors and their insurers for the cost of NHS treatment, charges to patients for prescriptions and dental treatment, hospital car parking, patient telephone services, etc.

China:The Basic Medical Insurance Fund is implemented by the combination of unified social adjustment and individual account, meantime collected in principle by prefecture-level department. All employers and employees in cites and towns are obliged to pay for the Basic Medical Insurance Fund. At present, the employers will pay for employees’insurance by extracting 6% from employees’salary, and employees pay for themselves by 2%, which will be deposited into individual account. While, the money paid by the employers will be divided into two parts: pooling fund and individual account. Pooling fund has a standard minimum and a cost limitation,