The impact of policies controlling government hospital development on the number and scale of government and private hospitals: A DID analysis
Since 2013, the state has introduced a number of policies to strictly control the number and scale of public hospitals and to control the rapid expansion of public hospitals. After the introduction of this series of policies, the number of public hospitals in China did not continue to grow, but the number of beds in public hospitals continued to grow. This paper uses difference-in-difference (DID) method to analyze the number of public hospitals with the corresponding data of the development of private hospitals after the introduction of the policy, and the results proves that the introduction of relevant policies has an impact on the number of public hospitals, but has a limited impact on the expansion of the scale of public hospitals. At the end of the article, positive policy suggestions are given to the development of hospitals in China, such as controlling the expansion of public hospitals, strictly controlling the number of beds in public hospitals, and vigorously developing private hospitals. Promoting the development of private hospitals is an important economic supplement to China’s health care.