China's health care delivery system mainly consists of village health stations, township health centers and country hospitals in rural areas, and hospitals and community health care centers in urban areas. Traditional Chinese medicine is an established component of the system. In the 1950s and 1960s, an extensive health care delivery system was set up to provide basic health care to the majority of China's vast population. After marketization reforms were initiated in 1978, the Chinese government withdrew from financing and managing health care provision. The pre‐reform system was greatly weakened, which exacerbated existing problems and created new challenges, such as lack of insurance coverage, soaring costs and spending, distorted provider incentives, patient–provider conflicts, lack of a functioning referral system, and inequality in access to available services. Since 2003 the Chinese government has led a campaign to address the problems. The most dramatic development has been the rapid expansion of public health care insurance programs, which now cover the majority of China's population, although the reimbursement rates are generally low. The government has recently professed its commitment to continue to improve health care provision; reform efforts to realign provider incentives and build a functioning referral system are unfolding. Rigorous examination is needed to assess their effects.