China announced wide-sweeping health care reforms this week , focusing on building more hospitals, reducing the price of common drugs, banning smoking from public spaces, and increasing state insurance subsidies. China--despite heavy reliance on government funding for social programs--has developed a curiously excessive reliance on the sales of drugs to fund hospitals, a feature of its health care system that doesn't quite sit right with the nation's overarching philosophy--or with its citizens. "I think that no matter what kind of hospital, you should rely on medical technology and improved services to gain income," said Sun Zhigang , the National Development and Reform Commission's deputy director.
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