Does the leading pharmaceutical reform in China really solve the issue of overly expensive healthcare services? Evidence from an empirical study.

Although the pharmaceutical reform could control or reduced drug expenditure and total health expenditure in short term, expenditures gradually resumed growing again and reached or even exceeded their baseline levels of pre-reform period, indicating the effect became weakened or even faded out in long term. In all, the pharmaceutical reform as a whole failed to meet its goal of combating sharp growth of drug and total health expenditure.