The shifting of health responsibility from government to people in Hong Kong

With a view to putting in place a sustainable healthcare system, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) has been working on a healthcare reform package stating the reasons for the reform and proposing some cost control initiatives. One reform initiative proposed is the Health Protection Scheme which aims to encourage the public to take out health insurance to enable themselves to pay for healthcare services provided by the private sector during both their working and retirement periods instead of relying on the public healthcare sector as the majority of Hong Kong people have been. This paper describes how the HKSARG and its related bodies convince the public to accept such a shift of financial responsibility by using various discursive strategies in constructing the discourse in the healthcare reform documents.