The Chinese government launched a three-year, 850-billion-yuan ($124-billion) effort earlier this year to rebuild the country's crumbling healthcare system. China once provided rudimentary but universal care to everyone, but as the country shifted from socialism to a market economy over the past 30 years, healthcare frayed, the Associated Press reports. Medical costs soared faster than incomes, and treatment today depends on one's ability to pay. Nearly a third of the poor say that health is the most important cause of their poverty, according to the World Health Organization.
