In commemoration of the 50th year of the British National Health Service(NHS), I trace the historical origins of policies and institutions of the NHS, to analyze its long-term effects on the health of the nation, and to interpret sociological meanings of its performance over the last fifty years. In applying a foreign national health program to the Korean health insurance system, we need to investigate (i) whether it has been modelled after the Bismarck type or the Beveridge type, (ii) whether the relationship between health and health care is plausible in it. and (iii) whether dominant paradigm of health is based on Asclepius or Hygieia.
In doing so, we also need to find out an optimum level of state intervention in health care versus market-based competition, and to implement a wide strategy of abolishing inequalities in health of the nation while maximizing its efficiency. The fifty year´s experience of the NHS suggests that all attempts at organizational restructuring outside local government have resulted in failure, forging us to redesign fundamental adjustments in the health care system.
This research is very timely and relevant for Koreas´ national health program in considering this year´s transformation from the decentralized administrative system into the unified one.
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