The Hong Kong government, in its consultation on healthcare reform in 2008, solicited input from the private sector in such areas as enhancing primary care and reform of health-care financing.
President Barack Obama has worked closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass health care reform and other measures, but there are a number of private-sector figures whose names appear more frequently in White House visitor records.
They calculate that if a rightist government is elected this summer, it will have an awful lot of unpopular work to do: both to get public finances in shape (not least under pressure from Brussels) and to cope with an ageing population it will have to take on the public-sector unions, slim the civil service and reform pensions, tax, education and health care.