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This study explores the feasibility of activating private health insurance in Korea. The rationale for expanding private supplementary health insurance can be found in many cases of health care reforms in the European countries. Private health insurance can not only relieve the financial distress of the government health insurance programs but also offer the medical institutions incentives to improve the quality of medical care. In Korea there is no supplementary health insurance that reimburses for various kinds of diseases based on a well designed fee schedule. Recently, the cancer insurance is the best seller in the health related insurance market. As observed in the U. S. case, the cancer insurance which pays the predetermined amount(indemnity coverage) regardless of the medical charges incurred to the patient is limited in its coverage for the insured. To provide better protection against catastrophic diseases, the government should give insurance companies incentives to develop health insurance products that cover multiple diseases rather than a single disease. Consumers can hardly understand and compare complex insurance products. To resolve the information asymmetries, the government should publish a consumer report that compare various health insurance products in a user friendly way. In the long run, insurance companies will plan to sell health insurance products that charge risk related premium only when insurers accumulate the underwriting know-how, the government shares data on various health statistics including claims and demographics, and risk pool for high risk patients is well established and subsidized by the government.
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