Competition as policy tool for public hospital reform in China / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

The essence of the market-oriented reforms is to promote competition rather than privatization. Competition does not only exist between public and private ownership forms, but also among public hospital them-selves. The promotion of the internal competition among public hospitals will play a positive role for the market mechanism to take effect. Due to the unique in various aspects of health care market, competition can have positive or negative influences on performance, thus the policy makers need to guide the competition policies carefully to make sure they work in the right direction. In regard to the status quo, we provide the following policy suggestions which emphasize on stronger regulation, higher degree of autonomy for lower-level medical institutions, and more information disclosure.