The politics of health finance reform in Hong Kong

Since the late 1950s, Hong Kong's public health services have increased. They are mainly funded by taxes, supplemented by minimal user fees. In the late 1980s, the government recognized the limitations of this financing model and subsequently proposed alternative methods of funding. Their proposals have been rejected by various stakeholders, who represented different, and even conflicting, values and interests. This paper describes the development of health services and the debates that have surrounded health financing since the late 1980s. It shows that the health finance debate in Hong Kong is not a simple issue that can be tackled by rational planning; instead, it is a complex consequence of welfare politics in an increasingly mobilized society.