The bi-weekly Beijing Healthcare Forum has announced their next lecture, this Wednesday at Gingko restaurant, at 845pm (drinks at 8). This week’s topic is “China’s Health Spending: Challenges for the Future”, given by Dr. John Langenbrunner from the World Bank. As usual, this is free and open to all, and it’s becoming a nice social event as well. Here’s more from the team:

We’re excited to continue our bi-weekly meetings with a talk on China’s current health financing situation compared to global patterns of health expenditures. We hope you’ll come join us.

Our next Beijing Healthcare Forum will be Wednesday, April 14th. The location will continue at Gingko Restaurant. 这个周三（4月14号）会议的地点又是在Gingko餐馆, 从安定门地铁站A口再往南走400m(在西边), which is 400m south of the Andingmen subway station on the West side of the street (see below for details and attached map). This week’s presentation will be in English. 这次演讲人要用英文讲话。 We will have participant translators available for non-English speakers.

Meeting Details 会议的细节:

• Language: English
• Topic: “China’s Health Spending: Challenges for the Future”
• Date: Wednesday, April 14th
• Time: 8:00PM (Discussion starts promptly at 8:30PM, not 8:45PM)
• Where: Gingko Restaurant
• Address: 199 Andingmennei Dajie, Dongcheng District, Beijing 北京市东城区,安定门内大街199号
• Ph #: 6402. 7532

This next meeting’s speaker will be Dr. John Langenbrunner of the World Bank (世界银行).

Lecture Topic 讲座题目:

这个讲座会描述中国目前卫生保健财政基本情况, 并且跟国际趋势比较. 其次, 我们会讨论医疗支出和宏观经济学的链接.中国为什么那么愿意增加公共支出? 是经济上或者政治上的原因? 而且, 中国政府在浪费资源吗? 最近这些新的支出可持续吗? 还一句话说, 将来的公共支出有别的支出方式? 总之, 考虑到当时中国老龄化人口和慢性病情况, 将来会有什么医疗支付和宏观经济的挑战?

Dr. Langenbrunner’s presentation will look at the current situation in China relative to global patterns in terms of health financing and patterns of expenditures for health. Secondly, Dr. Langenbrunner will discuss how issues relating health expenditures link up with the macro-economy. Why is China so interested in increasing public spending now? Is it political or economic? Related, should the government be concerned that this spending is just pouring “good money into a bad” system and wasting precious resources? Is the new spending of the last few years sustainable? And are there other options for generating public spending in the future? Finally, what are the coming challenges for health expenditures and macroeconomic growth given the ageing of the population and the onset of chronic diseases in China.

A brief bio of Dr. Langenbrunner is below:

下次会议的演讲人是 Dr. John Langenbrunner . 演讲人简介:

John (“Jack”) Langenbrunner is a Lead Health Economist with the World Bank with both research and operations experience. He has worked on health financing issues and health insurance design and development in issues in China and Vietnam, as well as Eastern Europe in the EU New Member States and in other countries such as Russia, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgzstan, and Kazakhstan. He has worked as well in selected countries in the Middle East on the development of insurance including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iran, and Egypt.

Jack has recently co-authored 2 books on Resource Allocation and Strategic Purchasing by insurers and other public and private organizations, and has authored or co-authored a number of papers related to this initiative. He also led the Bank’s work on a manual for National Health Accounts for low and middle income countries. This so-called NHA “Producers Guide” was published in 2003.

Previous to his work at the Bank, Jack was with the US Health Care Financing Administration, a public health insurance program for over 80 million Americans. He later went in the early 1990s to the US Office of Management and Budget where he served on the Clinton Health Care Reform Task Force for the US White House.

Jack holds masters and doctorate degrees in Economics and Public Health from the University of Michigan, United States. He is an occasional lecturer on health financing topics at Peking University, and at both the Johns Hopkins University and the George Washington University in the United States.

John Langenbrunner 目前在世界银行担任首席(资深)卫生经济专家. (“Jack”) Langenbrunner有着大量的相关研究和运营经验,他 不仅有在越南和中国进行健康保险设计以及卫生保健财政和发展问题方面的个人经历, 也曾在东欧, 欧洲共同体新兴国家, 如俄罗斯, 克罗地亚, 和阿基拜彊等地有过相关工作经验,同时他在中东地区如沙特阿拉伯,伊朗, 巴林, 埃及也有协助发展当地医疗保险机制的工作经历.

近年来, John Langenbrunner 合著了两本关于承包人及其他公共和私人机构资源分配和战略购买的专著.除此之外, 他也参与撰写了数篇关于该议题的文章. Langenbrunner领导了世界银行出版的专门服务于中低收入国家的<国家健康帐户(NHA)手册>的工作. 这本 “制造商指南”已在2003年出版.

他在世界银行工作之前曾在美国卫生保健财政科供职. 之后 90年代初,他 在白宫克林顿医改特别工作组里担任管理及预算官员.

John Langenbrunner 持有密西根大学公共卫生硕士学位和密西根大学经济博士学位. 他在北京大学, 霍普金斯大学, 和 乔治·华盛顿大学担任卫生保健财政特邀讲师.