• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.159-174
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine the health care expenditure of elderly single and elderly couple households whose head is more than 60 years old. The data analyzed for the study were Korean Retirement and Income Study(KRelS) conducted in 2007 by National Pension Corporation. The major finding of this study were as follows: First, the amount of health care expenditure of elderly single households was lower than that of elderly couple households. However, ratio of health care expenditure to total consumption expenditure of elderly single households was larger than that of elderly couple households. Second, the ratio of health care expenditure in consumption expenditure in this study was larger than the ratios in past analyse showed in the previous studies. Third, common factor affecting on health care expenditure of elderly single and elderly couple households was the existence of the family member with chronic disease or handicap. The health care expenditure of elderly singer households was influenced by income, gender and the ownership of national health insurance. The influence of income for elderly singer households seemed to be greater than for elderly couple households. The variables which affected health care expenditure of elderly couple households were age and housing tenure status. The amount and ratio health care expenditure were increased as the age increases. These results show that the health care expenditures for each groups varied according to socio-demographic variables and health-related behavior variables. It is suggested that there should be a discriminative health care policy for each elderly single and elderly couple households. In addition, the health care policy for the elderly households of which member has a chronic disease is certainly necessary. Especially a health care plan for the elderly single households with lower income is in need. For the elderly couple households, the priority group of health care policy would be the high age group.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.36-57
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• 2010

The degree of income inequality deepened by health care expenditure was useful in assessing the health security level. This exploratory study was conducted to provide a basic evidence to prove the necessity of reinforcement the benefit coverage of South Korea's health security systems. Data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Korea and Luxembourg Income Study were used. Income inequality indices before and after deduction of health care expenditure were computed, and the degree of the increase in the indices was compared among 13 countries. The degree of decrease against the effect of income inequality reduction policies by health care expenditure was determined. The relationships between the national characteristics and the increase in income inequality were examined. In South Korea, all income inequality indices increased after deducting health care expenditure, but the difference was not high compared to the mean of 13 countries. However, the degree of decrease against the effect of income inequality reduction policies by health care expenditure was high, compared to the mean of 13 countries. The proportion of public sector spending on health care proved to be statistically significant with the increase of income inequality indices (p<0.05). In the context of the continuous increase in health care expenditure, if benefit coverage of health security systems is not reinforced, income inequality will all the more increase due to health care expenditure. In the establishment of the policies for reinforcement of the benefit coverage, income inequality after deduction of health care expenditure should be continuously monitored.

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

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2013

Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the related factors which decide the percentage of health care expenditure of the total fiscal expenditure of local governments and to provide the basic data to contribute for the efficient allotment of healthcare budget. Methods: This study was conducted by the percentage of health care expenditure for 3 years by classifying a total of 230 local governments into the metropolitan cities (gu, 69), the counties (si, 75), and the boroughs (gun, 86) all over the country. With the collected data, the general characteristics of independent variables and the dependent variable were analysed using SPSS ver. 18.0, The correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis were conducted for the characteristics of variables according to regions by year. Results: In correlation between health care expenditure by year and other variables, there was a significant positive correlation with unemployment rate, metropolitan cities (gu) and other regions, the percentage of health center personnel, health care expenditure in last year as a independent factors. On the other hand there was no correlation with social assistance recipients and the percentage of aging population, financial self-reliance, industrialization rate, suicide rate, cardiac disease mortality, cerebrovascular mortality on health care expenditure. Conclusion: The study clearly shows that health care expenditure of local governance was not correlated with health care need factors comparing social welfare expenditure.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.49-57
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• 2018

This study aims to identify the inequalities and characteristics of health care expenditure of the elderly and non-elderly households by income level. As a result, health care expenditure of elderly households was statistically significantly higher than that of non-elderly households. As a result of calculating the concentration index of health care expenditure by income level, inequality was higher in order of non-elderly households, elderly households, and total households. In order to confirm the effect of health expenditure on household income inequality, we calculated the concentration index of income excluding total health care expenditure from total income. As a result, inequality was higher in order of elderly households, whole households, and non-elderly households. There was not much difference in inequality of health care expenditure among elderly households and non-elderly households. And, the health care expenditure of elderly households was much higher than that of non-elderly households. Also, inequality of health care expenditure by income group was serious. There should be no cases where the medical care support policy for elderly households can not use necessary medical services.

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

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.53-65
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• 2009

Purpose: This study was conducted to identify the prenatal heath care utilization and expenditure among pregnant women. Method: This was a 5-month follow-up study using a stratified sampling and the data were drawn from the "nationwide claim database of Korean National Health Insurance Corporation". Result: This study found that pregnant women were first diagnosed with pregnancy when they were 7.1 weeks pregnant, received 12.7 times of prenatal examinations and 10.6 times of ultrasonogram. It was revealed that 67.5% of the subjects continued to receive prenatal care at the same medical institutions from the diagnosis of pregnancy to the delivery. The study also showed that the total expenditure of prenatal care per pregnant woman was 700,000 Korean Won (KRW) on average and the insurance coverage rate stood at only 20%. Pregnant women living in metropolitan area spent more on prenatal healthcare expenditure than those who living in medium-sized city or rural area. Conclusion: The results of this study implies that the government needs to provide pregnant women with continuous support by increasing health insurance coverage for prenatal care. Especially, it is considered to provide more support to the pregnant women residing in medically underserved areas.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.90-109
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• 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 Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.28 no.2 s.50
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• pp.347-363
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• 1995

The increase of health care expenditures is an important problem in the almost countries. Also, suppression of the health care expenditures is an important problem in the health field of Korea since the national health insurance for total people in 1989. Thus, it is very important to grasp the change of the health care expenditures of family and proportions of the health care expenditures to total expenditures of family, because they are the basis of national health care expenditures in Korea. While the health care expenditures of urban family were increased during 1980-1993 by 12.8% annually, the total expenditures of urban family were increased by 14.8% annually. Consequently, the proportions of health care expenditures to total expenditures were decreased from 5.98% to 4.76%. The proportions of health care expenditure for 3 years to come were predicted to 4.75% in 1994, 4.67% in 1995, and 4.63% in 1996 by the time-series analysis. That is, it was predicted that they would be decreasing slowly. The product elasticity of health care expenditure was less than 1 in the multiple regression analysis. so the health care is normal good rather than superior good. Therefore, it seems that the household economy is able to bear the expense pursuing the improvement of quality of health care by actualizing the medical insurance fee.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.17-33
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• 2004

The present study attempts to examine the progressivity of health care financial sources based on the income approach, for which it decomposes redistributive effects into vertical, horizontal, and re-ranking components. The study data include Korean Household Expenditure Survey (2000) conducted every 5 year by Korea National Statistical Office. The data were sampled from the national population by the multistage probabilistic sampling method, and amounts to 23,270 households. For the better application of the income approach, the study employs household total expenditure in Korea instead of total income, because the former data source is more reliable and less fluctuated over time. Progressivity of health care financing was measured by Kakwani index. Aronson's decomposition equation was used in case of the analysis where differential treatment of health care expenditure needs to be considered. Despite the progressivity of Korea's governmental contributions, total expenditure of health care showed regressive pattern, which may largely be attributable to the higher regressivity in out-of-pocket money. With the result of negative Kakwani index, differential treatment increased income redistribution biased for better-off. It is worth to note that social insurance displays not only negative Kakwani index, but also horizontal inequality, suggesting that the first step of health care financing reform should be the revision of social insurance premium rates toward effective and equable way.