Well before dawn, nearly a hundred people stood in line outside one of the capital’s top hospitals. They were hoping to get an appointment with a specialist, a chance for access to the best health care in the country. Scalpers hawked medical visits for a fee, ignoring repeated crackdowns by the government. A Beijing resident in line was trying to get his father in to see a neurologist. A senior lawmaker from Liaoning, a northeastern province, needed a second opinion on her daughter’s blood disorder. Mao Ning, who was helping her friend get an appointment with a dermatologist, arrived at 4 a.m. She was in the middle of the line. “There’s no choice — everyone comes to Beijing,” Ms. Mao, 40, said. “I think this is an unscientific approach and is not in keeping with our national conditions. We shouldn’t have people do this, right? There should be a reasonable system.” The long lines, a standard feature of hospital visits in China, are a symptom of a health care system in crisis.  An economic boom over the past three decades has transformed China from a poor farming nation to the world’s second-largest economy. The cradle-to-grave system of socialized medicine has improved life expectancy and lowered maternal mortality rates. But the system cannot adequately support China’s population of more than one billion people. The major gaps and inequalities threaten to undermine China’s progress, social stability and financial health — creating a serious challenge for President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party. Then, there are the scandals. In July, hundreds of thousands of children were found . . . . . read more in The New York Times

Photo: Gilles Sabrié