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KMID : 1124020100260010121
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Korean Social Security Studies
2010 Volume.26 No. 1 p.121 ~ p.146
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The Role of the Private Health Insurance in Korea
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Shin Kee-Chul
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Abstract
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Despite its lower premium than those of other OECD countries, the pubic health insurance in Korea allows easy access to medical services and its level of coverages tends to increase consistently. The private health insurance, however, shows the enrollment rate of 63.7%, penetrating to all social classes regardless of income. The high level of private health insurance enrollment is attributed to the public health insurance being insufficient to cover the economic loss due to accidents or sickness, in the perspective of the entire medical care system. Since the public health insurance in Korea provides low level of coverages and no compensation for income loss due to accident or illness, it has the limitation that it is not able to sufficiently cover the financial loss on the sick and injured. Also, along with the improvement of medical technology and the aging of population, inter-generational transfer of financial burden can be a core issue of public health insurance. The private health insurance shall play a supplemental role in the medical care system. Its products shall be designed to minimize blind spots of medical services and inter-generational transfer of medical expense. The private health insurance also needs to contribute to promoting public health such as disease prevention by utilizing physiological information of the insured and to advancing the medical industry by encouraging competition among medical institutions. In order to achieve these desirable consequences, it shall complement the weak points in the entire social security system. After the role of private health insurance is defined accordingly, the corresponding regulations and supervising system shall be established.
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KEYWORD
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private health insurance, private medical insurance, co-payment, sickness allowance, disability pension
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