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KMID : 0857920220250010221
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Yonsei Journal of Medical History
2022 Volume.25 No. 1 p.221 ~ p.253
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Contesting Publicness in Private-Public Health Care and the Revision of Medical Service Act in 1973 Korea: Focusing on Introduction of the Medical Corporation
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Park Ji-Young
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Abstract
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This paper examines the concept and practice of publicness in healthcare in 1960s and 1970s Korea. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has made the publicness of healthcare an important social issue in Korea, the history of the publicness in healthcare has not attracted much attention from Korean medical historians. A few researchers investigating the healthcare system in late 1940s Korea showed that publicness had been a core value in the formation of the healthcare system, but they did not deal with its changes in later periods. However, studying the changes in the publicness of healthcare in the context of the rapid growth of the healthcare market and medical commercialization in 1960s and 1970s Korea is important in order to understand the origin of current concepts and practices of publicness in healthcare. Taking the 1973 Medical Service Act Amendment as a case, this paper examines the discourse of the Korean government, Korean doctors, and the public in relation to the publicness in Korean healthcare. In particular, by tracing the process from the introduction to the abolition of the Medical Corporation Law in 1973 Korea, this paper presents the following: 1) The development of the medical market from 1960s and 1970s in Korea promoted medical commercialization, which caused the complaints of the Korean public against the inequal distribution of medical resources. 2) The Korean government revised the Medical Service Act to stabilize its political and social position. The two goals of the Medical Service Act were to effectively mobilize private medical resources and to suppress the commercialization of medical services represented by the introduction of medical corporations. 3) Korean doctors opposed the mandatory establishment of medical corporations, arguing that private healthcare has sufficient publicness. By revealing the differences in perceptions among actors surrounding the publicness in Korean healthcare, this paper shows how the structure of the conflict between the Korean public and Korean doctors or between the Korean government and Korean doctors was formed over the development of private healthcare and the deterioration of the publicness of healthcare.
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KEYWORD
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Private Healthcare, Publicness, Commercialization, Medical Service Act, Medical Corporation
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