Universal Health Care Coverage In Korea

Abstract

Prologue: As the 1980s move to closure, an increasing amount of attention focuses on the organization and financing of the American health care system. As this exercise has unfolded in academic journals, congressional hearings, and public opinion surveys, more interest has been generated in the health care systems of other Western industrialized nations. One of the facts drawing attention to these foreign systems is data gathered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as published in Health Affairs (Fall 1988). In this paper, Gerard Anderson, a well-regarded policy analyst, looks at the Pacific rim, examining Korea's health care system. He shows how Korea achieved its goal of universal health insurance coverage, evaluates the impact on the business sector, and suggests lessons for the United States. In 1976, Korea adopted a policy that universal health coverage would be achieved by 1989. Since 1988, all Korean citizens have had health coverage, via private-sector initiatives and medical insurance societies. Anderson finds similarities in the U.S. and Korean health care systems, including a fee-for-service structure and concern for rising health care costs. However, the main difference between the two countries is that Korea has eliminated financial barriers to health care. “Korea has moved from insuring less than 10 percent of the people in 1976 to 100 percent coverage today, while during this same period, the U.S. percentage of covered citizens declined from 86.4 to 82.9 percent,” Anderson reports. He adds that the Korean people attach great importance to health care, as reflected in a 1981 Gallup poll that reported, “Health was the most important issue in their lives, and the factor most closely related to their overall happiness.” Anderson, who holds a doctorate in public policy analysis from the University of Pennsylvania, is director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He served from 1978 to 1983 in the office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.