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Team set up to cut healthcare costs
By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-19 08:36
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A special team has been created to cure the disease plaguing the nation's healthcare system: exorbitant costs.
The team will be formed of 11 departments including the Ministry of Health, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA).
Their main task will be to co-ordinate efforts to cut costs, with a particular focus on prices of drugs.
At the moment many of these 11 departments already play a role in regulating the healthcare sector, but due to poor co-ordination many problems are not being solved.
Experts cite high drug costs, profit-oriented hospitals and widespread lack of insurance as the chief concerns in the sector.
"Medical reform cannot be done by the Ministry of Health alone," Wang Dongsheng, deputy director of the Social Development Department of NDRC, told journalists at a health industry forum in Shanghai, which opened on Sunday.