How to guarantee the supply of low-price medicine in common use:Analysis from the perspec-tive of governance tools / 中国卫生政策研究

ABSTRACT

The effective guarantee of the supply of low-price medicine in common use is of great significance for the protection of public health, the safeguard of social equality and the smooth progress of new healthcare reform. On the basis of the governance tools theory, the paper focuses on an analysis of approaches to combine and optimize the diverse utilization of governance tools in order to integrate the means of supply of the low-price medicine in com-mon use. In other words, the paper utilizes the ‘Voluntary-Directive-Mixed’ governance tools framework to provide possible solutions for the supply of low-price medicine in common use, namely, the locations of the voluntary tools ( household and community, volunteers, and market) , the directive tools ( government command-control regulation, establishment of public enterprises, and direct provision) , and the mixed tools ( information disclosure and advice, subsidies, auctions of property rights, tax and user charge) . Lastly the paper proposes specific policy suggestions in four aspects to confirm the total strategy of guaranteeing the supply of low-price medicine in common useclever use of price leverage, improvements to procurement methods, establishment of an information disclosure system for medi-cine price, and a confirmation of government subsidies and industrial policy strategies.