保险

Health insurance. Of course I have one here. I pay my bills and get refunded back home - unless I lose my receipts. For most Chinese, however, health insurance, insurance in general, is just taking of. It is big business now, as I was reassured by someone from my soccer team working with Allianz in China. Eventhough there are painstaking obstacles (government officials, partners jumping the boat just before the deal and what not), the investment appears to be worth the hassle. The market is gigantic, and only part of it (major cities, the Eastern part of China) has been explored. Longterm thinking and the reduction of risk / maximization of security are slowly making inroads into people' minds, and their monthly paychecks. No wonder, since these paychecks are becoming ever voluminous.

Health insurance is naturally of main concern in China. Just consider the high number of traffic accidents alone. (Reminds me of one of my last days going to work - the bus slows down, people stare out of the window, there, in the rain, lies an old man on the street, just next to a minivan, blood trickling from his bald head and mingling with the water streaming down the street- an uncanny sight, with no one helping). Not everyone can afford health insurance in China. In fact, the Shanghai perspective is not representive for the country as a whole. Here people are relatively wealthy and enjoy a lot privileges for holding a Shanghai resident permit (户口). I suspect, most of them have health insurance (which is relatively cheap, ten Euros a month or so, at most). People from more rural and less 'advanced' regions are less fortunate. They are especially in trouble when working in Shanghai as the infamous 'migrant workers'. The soaring prices and their still meager paychecks force them to cut down costs. So, it's food against chances of the body.

The teachers at my school(just as the cleaning lady at my home) all have that (non-)status. They work here, but they all come from Anhui Province, north of Shanghai, needing to rent an appartment in Shanghai. They are not Shanghai residents and they work on the lower tier of the 'work-chain'. Since my school is not a normal public school but a school for kids of migrant workers, the teachers are not public officials, they have no insurance. And likely none to purchase themselves, no wonder with a monthly salary of 80 Euros. This isn't much because prices in Shanghai in many areas already equal those of European cities. They even overtake some cities such as Berlin in the rental and purchase of real estate.

There are plenty of people having no health insurance in China. And here is what happened. A teacher of my school got sick. Apparently a bleeder, a condition dangerous but normally not irresolvable, unless you lack insurance. This man had been sick for weeks. He could not go the hospital, he could not pay for it, his condition slowly deteriorating. His family, as all the teacher's families were in Anhui, the wife and two kids, all very poor, living with the parents of the wife. I know of this case, because the teachers organized a fundraising for the teacher, going around collecting money from kids and staff, I also chipped in. The wife came too, to pick him up and return with him to Anhui, perhaps getting him to a hospital there (again, Shanghai being too expensive). Speaking from my collegues demeanor when addressing this issue, it seemed a pretty helpless situation - he couldn't pay so he was bound to die. I don't know if, at this moment, he is still alive. Needlees to say, his wife and small children would face extreme hardship with him, the sole breadwinner, gone. It's hard to imagine, and it was also impressive and strange how the Chinese around me handled this situation with resolve and yet also going about business as usual (in a "well, what can you do"-manner), I assume accepting the higher authority of poverty over matters of life and death. This felt strange and utterly sad coming from a country with extensive health insurance coverage. I am an advocate of universal coverage, now more than ever.