Influence Factors on Health and Medical of Retirees Expense to Public Pension Recipients

Abstract

Background: This study aims to identify the monthly average medical expenses of public pension recipients, and analyze the determinants of total health and medical expenses and Western and Oriental medicine expenses, medical service expenses, and medical supplies expenses. Methods: This study used the fifth year data of 2013 out of the raw data of the Korean Retirement and Income Study collected by the National Pension Research Institute. This study conducted t-test, analysis of variance, and linear regression to verify publicly the relevance between pension recipients' general characteristics and health and medical expenses status using IBM SPSS ver. 21.0 for data analysis. Results: It was analyzed that there is a difference in the spending of expenditure and health care costs according to public pension recipients. Medical expenses of the national pensioners was higher compared to the special corporate pensioners. The national pensioner is related expenditure size, education level, family members living together, residential areas, status of spouse, number of chronic illness, and status of limitation in daily life with psychological health status. Conclusion: Therefore, fairness does not occur fire to the medical use between the special corporate pensioners and national pensioners, aggressive of government such as health policy and financial support for the retiree pension policy that reflects the reality intervention would be required.

Medical expenditures and its determinants depending on receipt of public pension in South Korea

“…The results revealed that people receiving the public pension (i.e., special occupation retirement pension and national pension) spent an average of KRW 120 thousand more on medical expenses. [3]…”

“…These results confirmed those of previous studies showing that expenditures on medical expenses increased when people were older [2,20] and living in Seoul, and households had higher gross household expenditures. [3,8] Retirees are exposed to a higher risk of chronic illness, various diseases, and accidents but they have difficulty in securing regular income through economic activities. The constraints regarding economic activities can eventually lead to serious disadvantage regarding medical use.…”

“…Moreover, they have to spend money to maintain a minimum livelihood. [16] Additionally, consumer's expenditures was used instead of income in previous studies [3,17–19] because the expenditures data are generally more appropriate and stable than monthly mean income data in terms of the lifetime income of a household. [20] Therefore, this study used total household expenditures, which is a proxy variable of household income, based on the data published by the Korean Statistical Information Service.…”

“…The National Pension Service is one of South Korea's pension systems aimed at the general public. [3] After receiving a certain amount of premium from subscribers and users, the service aims to stabilize the standard of living and promote the welfare of the people by providing various benefits for those who are exposed to social risks such as the interruption or loss of income. [4] Other public pension systems include special occupation retirement pensions (e.g., Public Officials Pension, Military Pension, and Teachers Pension) and they serve the same purpose as the National Pension Service.…”

Medical Expenditures Size of Disease: focusing on Retiree

“…Public pension system is utilized for the use of health care by retirees with many chronic diseases and high frequency of diseases in preparation for the disconnection or difficulty in economic activity after retirement [9]. Analysis of the amount of medical expenses by disease and the factors affecting them according to whether they receive the public pension or not with retirees has important implications.…”