A diabetes patient sits on a wheelchair, under a drawing of an old Chinese medical scholar, as she waits in a corridor of the Guanganmen Chinese medicine hospital in Beijing March 19, 2012. China's efforts to overhaul the world's biggest healthcare system and the increased medical care demanded by a more prosperous and aging nation will push costs higher, according to Health Minister Chen Zhu in an interview earlier this month. Chen said China's total healthcare spending could rise from 5 percent of GDP to "maybe 6 to 7 percent" in the next few years. That spending has been fueled by efforts to extend health coverage to all of China's 1.3 billion people and by a rise in chronic diseases such as lung cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes. Picture taken March 19, 2012. To match Interview CHINA-HEALTH.