The total national health care costs for 2021 were a huge shock when they were released, especially with more than 10 billion nucleic acid tests and more than 3 billion vaccinations. So who paid for the $7.55 trillion? Where was it spent? With all the nucleic acid tests and all the new crown vaccines, how much did you spend to fight the epidemic? That's probably the question on a lot of people's minds. The usual $7.55 trillion in total healthcare costs released this year has received a lot of attention, which is especially evident in 2020, the first year of the epidemic. In 2019, the year before the epidemic, China's total healthcare costs were 658.4 billion yuan, or 6.67 percent of GDP.
In academia, there are three methods of accounting for total healthcare costs. Funding source method, institutional flow method and actual utilization. In our country, we use the ? Funding Source Method? That is, only the government, society and individuals are counted in the current year. We don't know how much money was spent on health care, but we don't know the specifics of how those funds were spent.
Another health economist, who has long been concerned about health care costs, said there are two costs of vaccination, the cost of the vaccine itself and the cost of the vaccinator's labor. I did. As far as he knows, the cost of a single vaccination ranges from $3 to $10 per dose, and even at the upper limit of $10, the cost of the vaccine, plus the $120 billion above, should be $150 billion.
The medical costs behind nucleic acid testing are much more complex than those for vaccination. For example, from a population standpoint, the two groups that should be tested and the group willing to be tested have different payers for their health care. The former is borne by the treasury, health insurance or society, while the latter is partly borne by individuals. In fact, in addition to the recognized medical costs of vaccines, nucleic acids, etc., there are tens of thousands of medical institutions in China rebuilding their facilities, purchasing and participating in the equipment and supplies needed to prevent epidemics, with most of these costs coming from financial subsidies.