介绍:
: Our first topic is about a bit of an outcry over hospital tickets.
NL: So in this case we have this woman who was queuing at the hospital. She wanted to buy a ticket for her mother to be able to see a doctor, and she found that even though she was third in the line, she wasn’t able to get a ticket. The price for a normal registration at the hospital would have been 300 yuan. She found out there’s scalpers who had already bought up all the tickets and taken all the slots were trying to resell them for 4,500.
BK: Even though it’s not good to pay for scalping, I think the issue may lie elsewhere. One of the interesting things is the woman claimed, or she accused the hospital, in particular the security guards, of working with the scalpers there, something the hospital has denied.
WY: Many people believe whatever kind of disease they already have, they want to go to the best hospital in Beijing or Shanghai, and they believe by seeing the best doctor, they can solve the problem. Not long ago the country encouraged people if you have only a toothache, just a not that serious disease, you should better go to the community hospital or the hospital nearby. But, at the same time, does it mean that procedures need to be changed? If the scalpers buy the tickets with the other patients’ name, so what about directly set up another machine, and they can directly take ID to verify if this is the person who registered it. That will directly just kick the scalper out.
NL: This is something that I’m surprised there isn’t already. As far as I understand it, you do have to show some ID when you register, but then it isn’t checked when you go and see the doctor.
WY: The doctor, yes. And also, nowadays with the development of modern technologies, we can see in some best hospitals in Beijing like the 301, you can scan your ID card with all the results being printed out automatically for you [BK: Right, right]. So what about when you go to see the doctor you can directly scan your ID card so [NL: Technology saves the day again] Yes!
BK: It does, but technology is also not cheap there. But that’s also part of the thing though with the prices there; if you were to let that – those prices rise a little bit, the hospitals would have more money, there would be less of an incentive for people to go to the scalpers because - you’re now paying a little bit more, so if you don’t need to go these, this type of special expensive hospital to go see a doctor, you can go to another one that is cheaper there. But without prices being able to move around like that, you don’t have that flexibility, and it’s easier for scalpers to take advantage of that.
WY: I couldn’t agree with that frankly, because you can’t simply raise the price to solve these problems. You can make another machine to double check if this is the real person who already paid for the registration fee. But you cannot simply raising the registration fees price to ease the strong need.
BK: Right, you can’t ease the strong need, but if you let prices vary at different places, again with the market, people will pay only what they’re willing to pay, like…
WY: If this is for the capitalism market, or other kind of private companies, you can work like that because that is already in the market, but this is we’re talking about the public hospitals. They are totally different issues.
BK: They are run differently, but they don’t have to be. Again, if we’re – if we want people to be served and to not have their prices gouged by scalpers, because again, if you’re paying for a scalper, that’s also not fair to people as it is, so it may be more fair for people to pay what is worth it to them. You may have to pay a lot – obviously if you don’t have that much money, that’s not great. So what should be done is you let the prices rise in a market sort of way, but you give subsidies to those who are not able to afford it as well.
WY: The topic we are talking about today is how to eliminate the scalpers situation, not to decrease the need from the patients.
BK: Well, but how else are you going to do that? If there’s –
WY: If you can put a machine there to verify if this is a patient who pays for the registration fee, in that case, you kick the scalper out.
BK: Partially, but they’ll find other ways. That’s the problem. You need to attack the demand, I think. They need to pay a little bit more, because paying three kuai to see a doctor is great, but that’s ridiculous to have it so cheap. If it’s - different places should be allowed to price things differently.
WY: In that case, you are talking about some of the methods for the private hospital, not the public hospital.
BK: Okay. So there are downsides to all of these, but clearly, something needs to be done about the scalpers there, because the current situation is not going to solve itself.
