• International Journal of Contents
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.42-48
• /
• 2013

This research explores the convergence of health care expenditure in Korea with different income groups and the world level by applying different concepts of convergence, including growth rates, trends, differences as well as rationality and statistical variation of health care expenditure. The empirical evidence shows that, in general, the health care expenditure in Korea seems to be on the right track in terms of both level and difference, given the fact that convergence exists with the expenditures of the high income group and the world level. It is also worth mentioning that the Korean public health care system has been performing much better than its private health care counterpart. Such a result suggests that the private health care system has to be more elaborately and systematically managed through the establishment of an operational policy to stimulate an increase in private health care expenditure.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.27 no.3 s.47
• /
• pp.609-626
• /
• 1994

This study was conducted to investigate whether variations in hospital services utilization across small geographic areas in Korea existed, and if so, what factors are responsible for the variation. The claims data of the fiscal year 1992 obtained from the regional health insurance societies were used for the study. Main findings of the research can be summarized as follows: 1 Extremal Quotients (EQ) of hospital expenditure per capita and hospital days per capita were 2.69 and 2.73, and Coefficient of Variation (CV) were 0.14, both, respectively. The EQ and the CV of admission rate were also 2.71, 0.15. The EQ and the CV of expenditure per admission were 1.73, 0.10 and those of hospital days per admission were 1.29, 0.06. All these statistics were statistically significant and this result provides strong evidence for the existence of small area variations. 2. Comparing patterns of variation among areas, the area which showed higher utilization amounts is Chansungp'o. Koje area, whereas the areas which showed lower utilization amounts are Yongju, Changhung, Miryang, Mokp'o, Koch'ang area. 3. Multivariate analytic methods were used to examine factors related to the variation across areas. In terms of the health resource availability variables, beds per capita or physicians per capita were positively associated with all utilization indices. As for the health service market structure variables, the proportion of health care institutions operating for less than f years was positively related to the expenditure per capita, hospital days per capita and expenditure per admission. In addition the proportion of the private health care institutions also had a negative relationship with total utilization amount and admission rate and the proportion of physicians under age 40 was negatively associated with expenditure per capita and expenditure per admission. With regard to the socio-demographic characteristics, proportion of medicaid population was positively related to hospital days per capita, and percentage of paved road was positively related to hospital days per admission. As a conclusion, wide variations existed across small areas in Korea and supply factors were found to be important in explaining the variation.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.90-109
• /
• 2008

Government has extended the benefit coverage and reduced out-of-pocket (OOP) payment for cancer patients in 2005. This paper intends to examine the impact of the above policy on the equity in health care utilization. This paper analyzed the national health insurance data and compared the health care utilization of cancer patients before and after the policy change for people with 10 different income levels. For the equity in health care utilization, we examined the change in concentration index (CI) for visit days, inpatient days, and health expenditure. In the case of outpatient care, CI of visit days and health expenditure were positive(favoring the rich) in both regional and employee health insurance members and both 'before' and 'after' the policy change. CI values rarely changed after the policy change, and the policy change seems to have little impact on the equity of outpatient care utilization except expenditure of regional subscriber. In the case of inpatient care, CI of inpatient days was negative and CI of health expenditure was positive in both regional and work subscriber and both 'before' and 'after' the policy change. After the policy change, CI of inpatient expenditure in both groups of members decreased. CI of inpatient days changed in the direction favoring the poor in regional insurance members, but it rarely changed in employee insurance members. These results suggest that the policy of reducing OOP payment has a positive impact and reduced the inequity particularly in the utilization of inpatient care of cancer patients.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.113-122
• /
• 2002

This study compared the financial status between the employed-elderly households and the unemployed-elderly households, focused on income adequacy, expenditure adequacy and net wealth adequacy. Using data from 1997 KHPS, the lower financial status of the unemployed elderly households were found. Nine measures of financial status were used : income, per capita income, income-to-needs ratio, expenditure, per capita expenditure, expenditure-to-needs ratio, net wealth, net wealth-to-income ratio and net wealth- to-expenditure ratio. The results of this study showed that unemployed elderly households had 68%~77% of income adequacy and 72%~83% of expenditure adequacy for employed elderly households. Holding for gender, age, education, earners in the household, living area and home ownership constant, although the gap was getting smaller, significant differences between the unemployed-elderly households and the employed-elderly households were persisted. The result of this study indicated that the unemployed-elderly households and the employed-elderly households can not be regarded ac homogeneous group when public policies are developed.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.242-253
• /
• 2014

Background: The low benefit coverage rate of South Korea's health security system causes catastrophic health expenditure. And catastrophic health expenditure can be the cause of the transition to and persistence of poverty. This study was conducted to ascertain the effect of catastrophic health expenditure on the transition to and persistence of poverty, using 6 years of the Korea Welfare Panel Study Data. Methods: This study was conducted among the 22,528 households that participated in the Korea Welfare Panel Study, 2007-2012. Catastrophic health expenditure was defined as equal to or exceeds thresholds (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) of household's capacity to pay. The effect of catastrophic health expenditure on the transition to and persistence of poverty was ascertained via multivariate logistic regression. Results: Four-point-seven percent to 20.6% of the households are facing catastrophic health expenditure. Rates of the transition to (relative risk [RR], 18.6 to 30.2) and persistence of (RR, 74.8 to 76.0) poverty of households facing catastrophic health expenditure was higher than households not facing catastrophic health expenditure. Even after adjusting the characteristics of the household and the household head, catastrophic health expenditure was found to affect transition to (odds ratio [OR], 2.11 to 3.04) and persistence of (OR, 1.53 to 1.70) poverty. Conclusion: To prevent catastrophic health expenditure and transition to and persistence of poverty resulting from catastrophic health expenditure, the reinforcement of South Korea's health security system including the benefit coverage enhancement is required.

• KIEAE Journal
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.111-118
• /
• 2008

To maintain the public office buildings, the related government employee uses cost under the limited budget. it is difficult to execute the budget as is assigned to maintenance items with contemplating the characteristics such as frequency, cost/item, weighting factor, and etc. As a precedent study about this cost-efficiency model, this study is intended to show the expenditure trends, frequencies, and cost distributions of maintenance items for the development of cost-efficiency model by analyzing time series data from the surveys on maintenance costs of the selected public office buildings.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.21 no.5
• /
• pp.193-200
• /
• 2016

This study was conducted in order to assess the effect of variables influencing Korean baby-boomers' welfare consciousness. For this purpose, data from the $8^{th}$ supplementary survey of the Korea Welfare Panel in 2013 were analyzed. The subjects of analysis were 2,035 people who were born between 1955 and 1965 whose welfare panel data did not have missing values for the variables of the research model. According to the results of analysis, first, when the descriptive statistics of the major variables were analyzed, those showing a relatively high mean score among the sub-factors of the baby-boomers' welfare consciousness were 'expansion of expenditure for public assistance' (mean 3.65, SD .557), 'expansion of expenditure for social insurance' (mean 3.53, SD .646), and 'expansion of expenditure for social services' (mean 3.26, SD .424). The mean score of the baby-boomers' overall welfare consciousness was relatively high as 3.45 (SD .428), advocating the expansion of welfare expenditure. Second, the independent variables influencing the baby-boomers' welfare consciousness was found to have explanatory power of 12.9%. In the results of regression analysis, variables found to have a significant effect were gender (B=.100, t=2.573, p<.01), personal responsibility for poverty (B=-.151, t=-3.635, p<.01), social responsibility for poverty (B=.149, t=3.437, p<.001), and recipient's laziness (B=.251, t=6.578, p<.001). Based on these results were discussed major relevant policies.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.75-87
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to compare the amount of household health expenditures (HHE) and the proportion of health care expenditure to the household expenditure by ability to pay(ATP) levels. This study has focused on the influence of household ATP on HHE, estimating elasticity of health care expenditures for different ATP groups. For the empirical analysis, the Urban Households Survey Data of 2002 have been used. Our principal findings show that HHE are sensitive to changes in household ATP levels and that the group which is most responsive to changes in A TP level is the lower ATP group. These suggest that as households have less ATP, households with lower ATP reduce expenditures on health care in a proportional manner than those with higher ATP.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.342-356
• /
• 2019

Background: The objectives of the study are to find out the effect of the implementing reform in three Central Asian countries, identify its impact on health status and health care delivery systems. This study address to identify strong and weak points of the health systems and provide a recommendation for further health care organization. Methods: A comparative analysis was conducted to evaluate the effects of implemented policy on health care system efficiency and equity. Secondary data were collected on selected health indicators using information from the World Health Organization Global Health Expenditure Database, European Health Information Platform, and World Bank Open Data. Results: In terms of population status, countries achieved relatively good results. Infant mortality and under-5 mortality rate decreased in all countries; also, life expectancy increased, and it was more than 70 years. Regulations of the health systems are still highly centralized, and the Ministry of Health is the main organ responsible for national health policy developing and implementation. Among the three countries, only Kyrgyzstan was successful in introducing a national health system. Distribution of health expenditure between public expenditure and out-of-pocket payments was decreased, and out-of-pocket payments were less the 50% of total health expenditure in all countries, in 2014. Conclusion: After independent, all three countries implemented a certain number of the policy reform, mostly it was directed to move away from the old the Soviet system. Subsequent reform should be focused on evidence-based decision making and strengthening of primary health care in terms of new public health concepts.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.3
• /
• pp.763-769
• /
• 2021

The relationship between government size and unemployment is an important topic of study in economics. Large public expenditure has been blamed for causing higher unemployment contrary to the belief that it would help in reducing unemployment. More research on the topic, however, needs to be done as the available literature has been based largely on data from developed countries. The present paper examines the existence of the relationship in states of India by using panel data analysis. For more comprehensive study, public expenditure is divided into development, non-development, and aggregate expenditures, while the types of unemployment under consideration are usual status and current weekly status. Indeed, it has been observed that development and non-development expenditures increase both the types of unemployment though the impact of the latter is higher. The findings are important as it implies that a cut in expenditure can be an important fiscal tool to fight unemployment. It was further observed that unemployment was higher among states with a more educated population, which also suggests a revisiting of the education policy in the country. States ruled by left parties have higher unemployment rate. Higher income states as well as states with higher growth rate tend to have lower unemployment rate.