Equality And Efficiency Of Medical And Health Resource Allocation

The relationship between equality and efficiency has been discussed in theoretical circles for a long time as a hot topic, and "Efficiency first, also giving consideration to equality " was once identified as a principle of China's economic and social development. Under the guidance of this principle, China has made great achievements in economic development and gained higher GDP. However, it can't be denied that at the mean time the income gap of the people has significantly widened, and social conflict increased. Recently, the principle of "Efficiency first and also gives consideration to equality " was questioned in the theoretical circles. Such principle should be further questioned in the area of medical and healthcare in particular. China has ever made efforts to let the market decide the placement of medical and healthcare resources, only to result in decline even loss of equality, waste of some resources, with neither efficiency nor equality. It can be suggested by the phenomenon that despite of the growth of the total expenditure in such areas in recent years, the quality of China's medical and healthcare significantly decreased.Recently, the State Council issued a series of policies to correct the previous performance. The issue of how to distribute the medical and healthcare resources still needs to be discussed and probed. Under such situation, it would be beneficial to analyze and learn the different practices of other countries. The United States and Sweden can be seen as two typical models. They have different values for equality and efficiency; accordingly they have different practice in the distribution of medical and healthcare resources. Sweden is equality oriented, and it is doing better than the United States in such areas, which is efficiency-oriented. Although the United States much emphasizes on efficiency, its expenditures in such areas didn't yield satisfactory results. Through the analysis and comparison between the practices of both the United States and Sweden, this article contends that considering its own situation, China should make proper adjustments to the balance of equality and efficiency of the distribution of its medical and healthcare resource, thus achieving the integration of equality and efficiency, rather than an either-or choice. This article includes five parts: The first chapter, Introduction section. This article first introduces the research background and its significance; it outlines the situation of China's distribution of medical and health care resources; it categorizes and features of the research on distribution of medical and health care resources made by scholars at home and abroad. It lays the foundation for the subsequent analysis by explaining the main research subjects and methods involved.The second chapter, the definitions of relevant concepts. It defines the concept of medical and health care resources and their features, and specifies the characteristics of public goods and quasi-public goods in such areas. It also explains the terms of equality and efficiency, and their relationship. It points out that there is a co-existing discriminative and integral relationship between equality and efficiency.Chapter three, the analysis of the situation and problems of China's distribution of medical and health care resources. Such problems include:China's total health expenditure is not high; the lack of government health budget; the distribution of medical and health care resources is not fair; the utilization efficiency of medical and health care resources is low. These problems show that China is not doing a good job either in equality or in efficiency with regard to the distribution of medical and health care distribution. This chapter also elaborates the main cause of these problems, indicating the value of giving priority to efficiency on medical and health care resources has made negative impact.Chapter four, the major and important chapter of this article. It describes the practices of the United States and Sweden in the distribution of medical and healthcare resources and the experience that China can learn. Based on the analysis of the previous chapters, it studies the achievements that the United States and Sweden have made in the distribution of medical and healthcare resources, as well as the discrepancy between the two countries in such practice. It states that the government-oriented, all citizens covered covering "Swedish model" is superior to the market-oriented groups covered "American model "in general. However, the experience of the two countries tells us that, neither complete equality-oriented way nor complete efficiency-oriented way shall be adopted as long-term policy, because they would inevitably lead to the predicament of low efficiency or inequality. In summing up the experience of the United States and Sweden, it tries to figure out a way China should find as how to balance between equality and efficiency in the distribution of medical and health care resources.Conclusion. Through the analysis of China's current situation of the distribution of medical and healthcare resources, as well as the learning of the practice the United States and Sweden, the conclusion can be made that "equality first, also giving consideration to efficiency "should be the principle, and efforts should be made to achieve the harmonious integration of equality and efficiency.