Saturday, May 05, 2007

Hong Kong's Health Care Reform: The Next Battleground

With the government's mind set on introducing a competition law, the next policy battle is definitely on how HK should reform its medical sector going forward.

Indeed, in the Chief Executive election held earlier, candidates debated on this very topic. Read more here.

In the marketplace for ideas, it seems far more people in Hong Kong agree that the government should continue to play a prominent role in the medical sector than those who oppose it. As a result, the issue of whether we would like to see more government involvement or less is not much discussed. The focus of the debate is mostly concentrated on, given the level of government involvment, how should one go ahead and make the system more sustainable.

Personally, I am more interested in the first question. My position is that the level of government involvement in the sector should be reduced. And for those readers in Hong Kong who would like to read more on this topic, I would recommend:

1) The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care by David Gratzer. The late Milton Friedman wrote a foreword for David's book.

2) Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling. Arnold is the co-blogger up at Econlog.

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