Special theme – Health financing 819Bulletin of the World Health Organization | November 2008, 86 (11) Universal coverage and health financing from China’s perspective

Universal coverage of health services is required to ensure social equity and justice, particularly for China, which is a developing country with an enor-mous population. Since the 1980s, the Chinese health system has not been perform-ing well. The income gap between the rich and poor has widened and the “marketization ” of medical services has led to a decline in equity and access.1 The world health report in 2000 showed that equity of financial contributions in the Chinese health system was poor,2 and demonstrated that governmen