Abstract: Countries implementing health insurance schemes as social security systems are constantly confronted with the issue of long term sustainability as citizens continue to reap the enormous benefits of such healthcare financing systems. A review of existing literature and data were used to assess the benefits of the mandatory national health insurance system in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the potential effects of its intrinsic tenets on the long term sustainability of the system.
Methods: The paper was conducted through an exploration of literature on electronic databases such as PubMed, WHO discussion papers and Google Scholar in December, 2014/January, 2015. The thematic areas for the search included ‘health insurance in Korea’, effects of Korea’s health insurance’ and health insurance challenges in Korea. Abstracts from discussion papers, and descriptive studies were reviewed and an extensive review of full papers were further conducted.
Results: Findings from nine publications from the year 2001 to 2012 met the criteria for this narrative review. It was observed that mandatory subscription and rigorous government interventions have led to a 99% health insurance coverage in (ROK). The benefit packages include benefit in kind which focuses on medical treatment components and benefit in cash which focus on reimbursement and rehabilitation to avert catastrophic health expenditure. The health insurance system has contributed to general improvement in health conditions, effective resource allocation and it has become a benchmark for multi-payer health insurance implementation in other countries. However, the long term sustainability might be hindered by a rapidly ageing population, growing health expenditure and dominance of private healthcare providers.
Conclusion: Though the successes gained by the health insurance system cannot be underrated, it is downright misleading if not completely false to assert that there are no threats in terms of long term sustainability.
Keywords: Countries implementing health insurance schemes, Republic of Korea (ROK).
Title: The Implementation of Mandatory National Health Insurance System in South Korea: Some Successes and Challenges
Author: Richard Boateng
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
Research Publish Journals
