An Analysis Of The New Rural Cooperative Medical System In Operation

The three systems, namely, the cooperative medical system, the tertiary (county, country, and village) sanitation service network, and the village doctor teams, successfully solved the medical problems in rural areas when there was a severe lack of resources in the developing countries, and they were spread across the world as valuable experience. However, with the changes of times and the development of society, the rural cooperative medical system has declined, bringing farmers back into the group who are not medically cared for at all. Upon entering the21st century, more and more farmers are calling for a new medical system, and it was in this context that the Chinese government initiated a new rural cooperative medical system. The Communist Party and the Chinese government stick to the developmental notion of "Putting the people first", and are attaching more and more importance to the health of farmers and the development of rural medical care. In2003, the new rural cooperative system was launched, and it has become a critical part of the reform of Chinese medical care system. The first part of the present paper analyzes in detail the sources and uses of funding, the reimbursement policies, the supervision managerial system, as well as the problems and causes behind in the pilot sites, through a survey research of the operation of the new rural cooperative system in the pilot site of Linhe District, Bayannur, Inner Mongolia. The second part discusses the role of farmers, medical institutions and the government in the new rural medical system; they are the major players, i.e., the participants and beneficiaries, as well as the carriers of relevant responsibilities and obligations. The choices and preferences of the three parties can directly influence the effective operation and sustainable development of the new rural cooperative medical system. It’s paramount to make timely summary and analysis about the behavior of different parties in the new rural cooperative medical care system and about their interrelationships, in order to achieve a healthy and sustainable development of the system when the governments at all levels are sparing every effort to improve rural medical care. Game analysis of the participants in the new rural cooperative medical care system analyzes the relationships between farmers, government, and medical institutions using game theories, and proposes that in the working process of the new rural cooperative medical care system, the best strategic combination would be when the government is decisive, the funding and payment is timely and sufficient, and the medical institutions and the farmers share the same goals. The third part puts forward policy-making suggestions for renovations in the new rural cooperative medical care system and the new developmental pattern of gradually perfecting this system for the final realization of the unification of urban and rural cooperative medical care, in view of the current conditions of socio-economic development of rural areas in China and the perfecting of the rural cooperative medical care system for realizing the strategic goal of establishing and maintaining a rural medical care system in China that is inclusive, far-sighted, and radical.