Heavy Health
The Ministry of Health & Welfare and the National Assembly Research Service compared the former’s Korean National Health Accounts and Total Health Expenditure data for 2014 to the OECD’s Health Data for the same year. They subsequently announced on July 22 that the Korean government’s public financial resources accounted for 54.5 percent of the country’s national health expenditures in 2012. Conversely, the average of the 34 OECD member countries was as high as 72.3 percent.
According to the announcement, the public financial resources include taxes and social security funds such as the health insurance, occupational health and safety insurance, and long-term care insurance, and the ratio of the resources to total expenditures reached 56.6 percent in 2010 before decreasing to 55.5 percent in 2011 and 54.5 percent in 2012. Korea ranked 31st among the 34 countries in this ratio, followed by the United States (47.6 percent), Chile (49.2 percent), and Mexico (50.6 percent).
According to the National Health Insurance Corporation, health insurance coverage is continuing to decline in Korea, although the health insurance premium is going up year after year along with the accumulated reserves. Specifically, the coverage was 65.0 percent in 2009, 63.6 percent in 2010, 63.0 percent in 2011, and 62.5 percent in 2012.
As of 2012, Korea recorded a health expenditure per capita of US$2,291, lower than the OECD average of US$3,484. However, the rate of increase amounted to 4.9 percent between 2011 and 2012, more than three times the OECD average.