title: Individuals are inadequate: recognizing the family-centeredness of Chinese bioethics and Chinese health system.
abstract: This paper is aimed at a critical assessment of the moral framework of the current Chinese health system from a Confucian perspective, by focusing on the debate between the individual directed approach and the family-oriented approach to a health care system. Concerned with the nature and status of the family in communal life, the paper deals with the following questions: to cope with the frailties of material life (including susceptibility to disease), what good is presupposed by human existence and flourishing; why it is the family that serves as the primary locus of bearing and realizing this unique good; and what kind of society might possess the structures necessary to achieve the good thus conceived. All these questions lead to a revision of the theory of justice required in health care, in favor of family health saving accounts as an important institutional guarantee.
authors.affiliation: Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jue
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D026688:Bioethical Issues; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D032903:Confucianism; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000941:ethics*; D026690:Ethics, Clinical; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000941:ethics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020402:Medical Savings Accounts / Q000941:ethics*; D009014:Morals; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors