• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.374-386
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• 2015

This study attempts to examine the impact of a documentary film, on the perception and satisfaction with the public health insurance system in South Korea. It is needed that public support to expand health insurance coverage and to intensify national health insurance. The documentary film investigates health care in the United States, comparing with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. So an online education content for the general education was developed using this film and the surveys were carried out to gather information about perception, satisfaction and opinion on national health insurance system before the lesson and after. And pared t tests were conducted to analyze the effects of this education content using the film on perception and attitudes towards national health insurance system. Based on the empirical results, the way to develop education contents for improving the understanding public health system and to verify the effect of education contents were discussed.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.47-69
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• 1990

The measures taken to reform the Dutch health insurance system hold valuable lessons for countries such as Korea, where there has been increased concern regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the health services provided. The growing literature on comparative health insurance policies suggests that nations can learn from each other. In addition, Korean policymakers have shown great interest in the health insurance systems of foreign countries, particularly in Japan. The development of Korea's health insurance scheme during the past 12 years has made a significant contribution to the increased accessibility of health care services. Although the insurance coverage is universal, the health insurance system today in Korea is by no means a product of systematic and planned efforts. Moreover, it lacks due considerations of insured's needs as well as the long-term objectives of the social security health care system. There are growing gaps in premium burdens and benefits between the rural health insurance program and the employee's health insurance programs. Furthermore, the regional health insurance program is experiencing financial difficulties in spite of the fact that the amount of the government subsidy has been sharply increased in recent years. Under the present payment method solely based on the fee-for-service schedule, both consumers and providers are encouraged to utilize and prescribe more services. The combination of the utilization-inducing reimbursement system and continuous pushes for expanding health insurance has played a crucial role in raising the country's medical bills. Current trends in Korea's health care sector and those anticipated in the near future necessitate changes in the structure and funding of health care. As indicated in the above, there are various shortcomings in this context, the health policy authority in Korea can draw valuable lessons from the Dutch experiences in reforming their health insurance system. The main elements of the Dutch reform measures are a restructuring of the insurance system and a greater role for market forces in the health care system. On this basis a new system will be created which reflects the social nature of health care while at the same time containing sufficient mechanisms to allow the health care sector to operate in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.99-104
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• 2019

On May 1, 2019, the Minister of Health and Welfare announced publicly the first Comprehensive Plan of National Health Insurance (NHI). The Comprehensive Plan which is the 5-year plan including expenditure and revenue aspect of NHI, is desirable in 42 years of introduction of NHI and 30 years of universal coverage of NHI, though the Plan was late and had some conflict process. The Comprehensive Plan was established without evaluation of Moon's Care Plan, did not included to relationship with NHI and other health security systems, and did not have the blue print of NHI. The Plan was not sufficient in content of adequate health care utilization and relationship with service benefit and cash benefit. The Comprehensive Plan should be modified in considering the blue print of NHI and national healthcare system with participating stakeholder in turbulent environment-low fertility, rapid ageing, low economic growth rate, era of non-communicable diseases, unification of the Korean Peninsula, and 4th industrial revolution. Therefore, I suggest to establish the President's Committee of Improving Healthcare System for the blue print of health care and NHI.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.202-209
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• 2018

Health care has two different facets. One is commodity and another is a right of human being. Health care as a commodity is utilized by demand approach in market. Demand is determined by economic factors such as price and income. From the last third of the 19th century until the early 1920s, priority of sickness insurance was replacing the income that workers lost as a result of illness and injury. By the 1920s, the capacity of applied biological and medical science was remarkably developed. Development of medical science stimulated the cost of medical care, and the burden of increased medical care cost required new role of medical care security system. In 1942, Beveridge report was published in United Kingdom, and health care was considered as a right of human being. In 1948, United Nations declared heath care as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Right. In most countries introduced new medical care security policy based on health care as a right. The viewing health care as a commodity must be shifted toward need based care as a right. Need were understood to rest on demographic, epidemiological, scientific, and medical knowledge factors. Bring needed care to the population could best be achieved institutionally by a hierarchy of provider organizations, guided by planning bodies, which would provide comprehensive benefits. In Korea, health care in social health insurance (SHI) is considered as a commodity not a right. However, health policies under SHI must be need approach based on health care as a right. Mismatch between health policies and ideology of SHI made big troubles. It is important to realize ideology of SHI for good health policies.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.99-128
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• 2008

Nearly all Koreans are insured through National Health Insurance(NHI). While NHI coverage is nearly universal, it is not complete. Coverage is largely limited to minimal level of hospital and physician expenses, and copayments are required in each case. As a result, Korea's public insurance system covers roughly 50% of overall individual health expenditures, and the remaining 50% consists of copayments for basic services, spending on services that are either not covered or poorly covered by the public system. In response to these gaps in the public system, 64% of the Korean population has supplemental private health insurance. Expansion of private health insurance raises negative externality issue. Like public financing schemes in other countries, the Korean system imposes cost-sharing on patients as a strategy for controlling utilization. Because most insurance policies reimburse patients for their out-of-pocket payments, supplemental insurance is likely to negate the impact of the policy, raising both total and public sector health spending. So far, most empirical analysis of supplemental health insurance to date has focused on the US Medigap programme. It is found that those with supplements apparently consume more health care. Two reasons for higher health care consumption by those with supplements suggest themselves. One is the moral hazard effect: by eliminating copayments and deductibles, supplements reduce the marginal price of care and induce additional consumption. The other explanation is that supplements are purchased by those who anticipate high health expenditures - adverse effect. The main issue addressed has been the separation of the moral hazard effect from the adverse selection one. The general conclusion is that the evidence on adverse selection based on observable variables is mixed. This article investigates the extent to which private supplementary insurance affect use of health care services by public health insurance enrollees, using Korean administrative data and private supplements related data collected through all relevant private insurance companies. I applied a multivariate two-part model to analyze the effects of various types of supplements on the likelihood and level of public health insurance spending and estimated marginal effects of supplements. Separate models were estimated for inpatients and outpatients in public insurance spending. The first part of the model estimated the likelihood of positive spending using probit regression, and the second part estimated the log of spending for those with positive spending. Use of a detailed information of individuals' public health insurance from administration data and of private insurance status from insurance companies made it possible to control for health status, the types of supplemental insurance owned by theses individuals, and other factors that explain spending variations across supplemental insurance categories in isolating the effects of supplemental insurance. Data from 2004 to 2006 were used, and this study found that private insurance increased the probability of a physician visit by less than 1 percent and a hospital admission by about 1 percent. However, supplemental insurance was not found to be associated with a bigger health care service utilization. Two-part models of health care utilization and expenditures showed that those without supplemental insurance had higher inpatient and outpatient expenditures than those with supplements, even after controlling for observable differences.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.241-248
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to investigate empirical evidences of productivity of life insurance institutions in Malaysia. Therefore, this study attempts to explore the productivity of the life insurance institutions in Malaysia. The overall findings show that the total factor productivity (TFP) has progressed by 2.5% per year during the study period from 2012 to 2016 in the Malaysian insurance industry. However, TFP change has declined from 2012 to 2015 and observed a negative growth in 2015-16 (3.3%). The highest productivity progress was documented during 2012-13 at a rate of 11.7% while the minimum productivity progress was during 2014-15 (only 0.2%). The results also indicate that the decomposition of TFP found that overall progress could mainly be attributed to technological change (TC). However, technical efficiency change (TEC) and pure technical efficiency change (PTE) have negative impact on TFP. The findings also show that most of the insurance companies have a steady growth. Therefore, this study will contribute new insights for the policy makers and insurance institutions to take appropriate steps in developing relevant policies for increasing productivity of insurance institutions in Malaysia.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.263-271
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• 2018

Health technology assessment (HTA) is defined as multidisciplinary policy analysis to look into the medical, economic, social, and ethical implications of the development, distribution, and use of health technology. Following the recent changes in the social environment, there are increasing needs to improve Korea's healthcare environment by, inter alia, assessing health technologies in an organized, timely manner in accordance with the government's strategies to ensure that citizens' medical expenses are kept at a stable level. Dedicated to HTA and research, the National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency (NECA) analyzes and provides grounds on the clinical safety, efficacy, and economic feasibility of health technologies. HTA offers the most suitable grounds for decision making not only by healthcare professionals but also by policy makers and citizens as seen in a case in 2009 where research revealed that glucosamine lacked preventive and treatment effects for osteoarthritis and glucosamine was subsequently excluded from the National Health Insurance's benefit list to stop the insurance scheme from suffering financial losses and citizens from paying unnecessary medical expenses. For the development of HTA in Korea, the NECA will continue exerting itself to accomplish its mission of providing policy support by health technology reassessment, promoting the establishment and use of big data and HTA platforms for public interest, and developing a new value-based HTA system.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.104-128
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• 2003

Equity in health care has taken priority in the Korean government's policy agenda after the government-led national health insurance achieved universal coverage in 1989 along with the final inclusion of the self-employed as beneficiary. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which there exists difference or inequality in the utilization of health care, especially cancer inpatient services among income classes. We analysed the utilization of cancer inpatient services of residents in Jeju Island for a year of 2000, using the national health insurance data for qualification of beneficiaries and utilization of health care. The independent variable are 10 income classes based on the national health insurance fee imposed on each household for a year of 2000. The dependent variables of this study are an amount of cancer inpatient health care utilization measured by cancer admission days and cancer treatment costs. Also, cancer inpatient health care utilization is analysed by three categories divided into utilization in medical care institutions (1) within Jeju Island, (2) outside Jeju Island, and (3) all within and outside Jeju Island. We measured concentration index of cancer inpatient health care utilization. This analysis showed negative concentration index within Jeju Island and positive outside Jeju Island, and positive in all within and outside Jeju Island. This results suggest inequality against the relatively poor income groups in utilization of cancer inpatient health care services. Especially, inequity of cancer inpatient health care would be more serious in Jeju Island of Korea, considering that lower income groups reportedly have higher incidence rates in most of cancer and thus use more health services.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.142-165
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• 2009

Although providing universal coverage for health care through the National Health Insurance(NHI) is a remarkable achievement, the issue of limited benefit coverage of the NHI has been at the core of national debate over how to improve its coverage. This study aims to evaluate benefit extension strategies and implemented policies with regard to the NHI since 1989 using 'policy window theory' proposed by John W. Kingdon. Understanding problem stream, policy stream, political stream, and coupling streams regarding the NHI, in particular benefit extension, would contribute to broaden policy debates and to develop more effective strategies for the future. Historically, political stream had opened policy window in the past two decades and policy streams can be characterized by three waves. Three streams have been coupled since 2003 and the government had a strong will to fulfill better performance of NHI coverage. Study findings indicate that identification of problem structure regarding NHI benefit was not connected with policy stream tightly. In addition, there has been limited discussion on policy goal and principles for extension coverage of the NHI. Policy strategies to improve coverage of the NHI should be linked to characteristics of problem and sought solutions under the principle which is expected to be sustainable through consensus in the society.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.1-32
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• 1992

The Canadian experience-universal government health insurance administeredby the ten provinces and two territories with some fiscal and policy variations-suggests the possibility of more effectve and efficient health care delivery system. The central purpose of the Canadian health in surance was to reduce and hopefully eliminate financial barriers to medical care. In this it succeeded. But it also produced varous kinds of unexpected side-effects on cost and quality. The Federal and Provincial Governments of Canada continue to exert theri efforts to ameliorate these problems. The lesson from Canada is that the health care revenue should be raised at the national level and managed at the regional level, and the regional healthcare financing organization has to take over the functions of the public health center. These alternatives is expected to make the Korean health care delivery system more efective and efficient, and to achieve health for all. This paper also discussed the policy agenda for implementing such alternatives in Korea.