I have personally witnessed the father of a friend who had a massive stroke. We went with her to the hospital. The Chinese medical system is so blatently unfair that it was amazing. Money or foreign insurance makes a HUGE difference on quality of care. The emergency doctor is so upfront, I was personally offended for our friend's sake. Doctor wanted a red envelope with cash. He actually said, "ATM machine is across the street". Every nurse, care aide and EVEN the cleaning staff all came over with their hand out. The local I was with said, "nurses get about 500 rmb or they will not care for your father and nursing assistant should get about 200 rmb or they will not feed or wash your father and the janitor should get about 100 rmb or the bed area will not be cleaned"
As we were waiting, nurse comes up to us and says, "your father needs his head shaved so that doctor can cut a hole in his head to relieve the pressure - I need a razor to shave a part of his hair off, give me 20 rmb now"
The 12 or so hours we waited in the waiting room, at least once a hour somebody will come by demanding cash for everything and anything.
If I couldn't speak Chinese, this would be a frighting experience.
Why I feel basic travel medical insurance is not necessarily a bad thing to purchase.