Another mass protest erupts
This time it’s China’s elderly
And it could spell disaster for the Chinese Communist Party
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
China has a major problem on its hands. Okay, I probably need to be more specific.
That’s like saying Nick Cannon has baby mama drama. Gotta narrow that one down, chief.
On February 8, over ten thousand retirees stood
in the rain in a mass protest against recent government health care reforms.
In a few minutes, I’ll explain what those reforms are—and why people hate them so much.
But first, the protests. They were huge.
Obviously the Communist Party knew how to handle the situation.
By sending in the police. Because that’s their reaction to everything.
Their eggs are a little on the runny side? Get the police! This is obvious insubordination!
This might seem like an overreaction to you. But the Chinese Communist Party knows better.
I mean, have you seen China’s elderly? I’m pretty sure Master Roshi gets training
advice from them. Not exactly people I’d want to get on the wrong side of.
Especially because the Communist Party knows that when these people were younger, they looked like
this. Yes, the 1960’s were pretty different in China. Many of today’s elderly were yesterday’s
Red Guards, perfectly willing to resort to extreme acts of violence against class enemies.
So again, you really don’t want to be on their bad side.
If they can tie themselves in knots, imagine what they’ll do to you.
There is a very real risk these latest protests over healthcare reform could snowball.
After the first protest, another one happened earlier this week, with thousands more protesters.
And more police.
China’s population is rapidly aging.
“By 2035, 400 million people in China are expected to be over 60,
accounting for nearly a third of its population.”
Even if just a fraction of them turn out to protest,
it could have huge ramifications for the Party.
Not just politically. If these elderly don’t get their healthcare,
they’re gonna make sure whoever they get their hands on is gonna need healthcare.
Whether or not the Communist Party can provide medical care for the growing elderly population
will determine its legitimacy. That’s because when the government puts itself in charge of
absolutely every facet of society, people expect the government to take care of everything.
And guess what? China’s healthcare system has been managed terribly. The system is
running out of money. And the reforms people are protesting, are only making things worse.
So how messed up is China’s healthcare system? I’ll tell you right after the break.
Welcome back.
China’s state-run healthcare system is horribly broken.
That’s because of incompetence and corruption.
Which isn’t a surprise, since incompetence and corruption are the pillars the Chinese
Communist Party are built upon. And those pillars are of course cracked and uneven.
I won’t go into the details of how the whole system works because that might be a bit much,
but basically, city-level governments manage the basic health insurance fund in most
parts of China. Some are managed by county-level governments, but the main thing to know is this:
how rich a region is largely determines how much money is actually in the fund.
And as I said, there is a lot of corruption.
“Senior and retired CCP cadres have long had access to generous medical treatments
at public expense and without having to pay for basic healthcare insurance.”
In other words, a small group of Party elite were using up
most of the country’s healthcare resources.
How were they even able to blow through that much money?
Were they getting so much plastic surgery they now look like
Bruce Campbell’s character in Escape From LA?
Then came Covid. And things only got worse.
Businesses across China were shut down for years because of the strict Zero Covid policy.
So the Party allowed certain businesses to stop making employee health insurance payments. “Sorry
for ruining your business. As a reward, we’ll let you screw over the people working for you.”
On top of that, “During the ‘zero-COVID’ years, local governments and pharmaceutical companies
turned the public health insurance funds into their personal ‘piggy bank’ of sorts to pay
for mass testing and other ‘epidemic prevention and control’ measures.”
And maybe even wilder plastic surgeries.
Zero Covid and government policies also created a lot of debt for local governments,
and the Party has said there will be no bailouts.
After all, it’s not the Party’s fault that the Party was incompetent and corrupt.
And if you disagree,
that sounds like insubordination!
The impact on the healthcare sector was huge. That was on top of the problems already plaguing it.
That’s why the Party implemented the healthcare reforms.
There are several main problems with existing healthcare that
the Party is trying to fix with those reforms.
One, it was easier for people to claim insurance for hospital treatment,
instead of outpatient services.
That means people prefer to go to the hospital, even when the problem isn’t that serious.
Ingrown toenail? Better clear up some space in the ICU, daddy’s coming in hot!
This strained hospital resources, especially during Covid.
Two, there were also cases where hospitals and patients worked
together to drain insurance funds with fake illnesses and treatments.
That’s what happens in Communist systems that foster corruption.
“Who taught you to be so corrupt?” “You, all right? I learned it by watching you!”
A third issue was that hospitals would turn away patients if they
couldn’t get a lot of money out of their personal insurance funds. Because they’re
trying to run a business here! What does this look like, some kind of hospital?
And a fourth issue is, if someone in your family needed medical attention,
you couldn’t use what was in your own personal fund to pay for their treatment.
“This resulted in many fraud cases as people came up with all sorts of
schemes to access personal account funds to pay their relatives’ medical expenses.”
Fraud for using your own money. Welcome to communism, folks.
The Party’s healthcare reforms attempted to fix several of those issues. People can now
use their personal funds to pay for family members’ medical expenses. Reimbursement
for outpatient services increased, which in theory should have reduced hospitalizations.
But like most Communist state-led interventions, the reforms have also created a ton of new
problems. Because to pay for the reforms, the Party also had to slash benefits.
In Wuhan, where the protests happened, 2 million retirees were affected.
At a time of soaring healthcare costs,
people were getting their medical benefits cut by more than half.
Some protesters said their monthly medical benefits went from 260 yuan down to 82 yuan.
Others complained the maximum amount that could be claimed went from 4,000 yuan down to 1,300.
That’s more cut than these senior citizens’ abs!
But get this. “The protesting Wuhan retirees were also unhappy that active civil servants
and staff in public institutions did not appear to be affected by the reform.”
Wow, what a shocker. Forget Jack Quaid,
Chinese government workers are the nepo babies you gotta worry about.
Again, with China’s rapidly aging population, this is just the beginning.
Earlier this year, there was another retiree protest in Guangzhou after their
health insurance premiums were cut by two-thirds. This is the problem with relying on the government
for everything. A government does not directly produce wealth, so it can’t provide services
without first taking in people’s money through fees and taxes. So while the Communist Party
promises to solve all of China’s problems, it often just ends up creating more.
And there are some problems you can’t just call the police on.
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