Of all the healthcare systems to negatively compare the US system to, I don't really think China is a good pick. Comparing the times that I've had to use medica

Of all the healthcare systems to negatively compare the US system to, I don't really think China is a good pick. Comparing the times that I've had to use medical care in China to my general experience in the US, I would opt for the latter every time. For a simple outpatient visit, I showed up to a well-regarded hospital, where I was greeted with a 2-hour wait, an overwhelmed front desk staff, and a session with a doctor that felt too rushed. For recurring mild headaches, the doctor prescribed medicine that a doctor in the US would have recommended only for migraines. I tossed that RX script in the trash as soon as I left the office. This was my first personal brush with the flip side of the easy access to drugs in China: the phenomenon of overprescription (https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0965 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.... & https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/04/02/chinas-healthcare-system-plagued-by-unprofessional-doctors-researchers-say/ https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/04/02/chinas-health...). If you've spent time in China (and it sounds like you may have), you've probably been exposed to the level of health supplement and "pharmaceutical" product marketing in China. It's prevalent on TV, on WeChat, and in newspapers. Supplements like "Nao Bai Jin", which is effectively just melatonin, get pushed on the public without government intervention. "Doctors" regularly appear on elaborate infomercials to promote supplements that claim to do everything from removing heavy metals from you blood to improving kidney function. All of these are available without a prescription. --- This is not to mention that if you're too poor to afford private health insurance in China (i.e. the vast majority of the population), you're stuck with the bare bones basic health insurance the government provides. For all the hysteria around Obamacare "death panels", it is actually the case in China that patients with terminal conditions are routinely sent home, since hospitals are so overcrowded (particularly in larger cities) and bed spaces are so limited. If the cost of drugs for a treatable disease or condition is too high, public insurance can refuse to pay for it outright. If it's political corruption you're worried about, keep in mind that the Chinese FDA is only getting a much-needed reorganization as an independent agency this year, and has seen scandals like this: https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/13/a-whistleblower-goes-public-against-chinas-fda/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/08/13/a-whistleblower-goes-pu.... This is not to mention that still fresh in many people's memories are the massive coverup of SARS in 2003, and a coverup of avian flu in 2013 (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/03/china-reports-bird-flu-cases https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/03/china-reports-...). I'm no fan of administrative bloat, and it's somewhat ironic that access to drugs in China is in many ways more "free market" than in the US, but I don't think medical/pharma "corruption" is any less prevalent in China.