Solidarity, Coalition and Strategy: Health Insurance Reform in the South Korea

Kim, Seongjo

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2475999

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…In Korea, the employers, large corporations which paid half of the contribution of the employees and those with high incomes and low risks were among the potential opponents, as they were concerned that due to the problem of income assessment in the self-employed, the unified insurance system would place more pressure on industrial employers and workers to pay their contribution [ 22 ]. The company-based health societies which provided exclusive benefits for their employees were against integration as they believed that integration would lead to eliminating the company-based health societies and in turn the company-based welfare programs [ 24 , 26 ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The experiences of merging health insurance funds in South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia: a cross-country comparative study

Bazyar

Yazdi‐Feyzabadi

Rashidian

et al. 2021

Int J Equity Health

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Background Fragmentation in health insurance system may lead to inequity in financial access to and utilization of health care services. One possible option to overcome this challenge is merging the existing health insurance funds together. This article aims to review and compare the experience of South Korea, Turkey, Thailand and Indonesia regarding merging their health insurance funds. Methods This was a cross-country comparative study. The countries of the study were selected purposefully based on the availability of data to review their experience regarding merging health insurance funds. To find the most relevant documents about the subject, different sources of information including books, scientific papers, dissertations, reports, and policy documents were studied. Research databases including PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Science Direct and ProQuest were used to find relevant articles. Documents released by international organizations such as WHO and World Bank were analyzed as well. The content of documents was analyzed using a data-driven conventional content analysis approach and all details regarding the subject were extracted. The extracted information was reviewed by all authors several times and nine themes emerged. Results The findings show that improving equity in health financing and access to health care services among different groups of population was one of the main triggers to merge health insurance funds. Resistance by groups enjoying better benefit package and concerns of workers and employers about increasing the contribution rates were among challenges ahead of merging health insurance funds. Improving equity in the health care financing; reducing inequity in access to and utilization of health care services; boosting risk pooling; reducing administrative costs; higher chance to control total health care expenditures; and enhancing strategic purchasing were the main advantages of merging health insurance funds. The experience of these countries also emphasizes that political commitment and experiencing a reliable economic growth to enhance benefit package and support the single national insurance scheme financially after merging are required to facilitate implementation of merging health insurance funds. Conclusions Other contributing health reforms should be implemented simultaneously or sequentially in both supply side and demand side of the health system if merging is going to pave the way reaching universal health coverage.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The experiences of merging health insurance funds in South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia: a cross-country comparative study

Bazyar

Yazdi‐Feyzabadi

Rashidian

et al. 2021

Int J Equity Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Farmers, the poor in urban areas, academics and civil groups were also among the early advocates of uniform financing systems 22 . The residence-based municipal health insurance societies that were suffering from serious financial problems due to covering lower-income and older people and trade unions in the mid-1990s that focused on the redistribution and solidarity across different income groups rather than occupational differences were among the supporters of merging health insurance schemes 25 .…”

Section: Leadership and Political Commitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Physicians were neutral as they were not directly affected by the outcomes of the integration reform. Instead, they were concerned about the fee schedule and the reforms on the payment system 25 .…”

Section: Neutrality Of Potential Opposing Groups Such As Physiciansmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Experiences of Merging Health Insurance Funds in Turkey, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia: What lessons can be learned?

Bazyar

Rashidian

Yazdi‐Feyzabadi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background : Fragmentation in health insurance system can obstruct reaching universal health coverage’ objectives and may lead to inequity in financial and organizational access to health care services. One possible option to overcome this challenge is merging the existing insurance funds together. This article aims to review the experience of Turkey, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia regarding merging which can be very useful for other countries which are looking for ways of enhancing their health systems. Methods: The present study is a cross-country comparative analysis. The first criterion to choose these countries was with experience of the policy of merging. The second criterion was diversity in health insurance systems. To find the most relevant documents about the subject, different sources of information were searched including books, scientific papers, reports, policy documents and documents published by international organizations such as WHO and World Bank. We followed snowball sampling method to reach out for further documents by checking the reference list of the most relevant documents. We also contacted the authors with the most relevant articles in the selected countries to introduce and provide us with more articles or publications about the subject. Results: The experience of Turkey, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia show that different reasons may force policy makers to move towards merging and reducing the number of health insurance funds; different stakeholders may support or oppose merging based on the interests they may have in the current fragmented health insurance system; various positive and negative consequences may occur in the health system as the result of merging. The experience of these countries also emphasize that in order to accelerate and facilitate implementation process of merger and face less operational challenges, there should be some prerequisites such as experiencing reliable economic growth to enhance benefit package and support the single national insurance scheme financially after merging. Conclusions: Merging is not the panacea to all problems of health system and other contributing health reforms should be implemented simultaneously or sequentially in other aspects of health system if merging is going to pave the way reaching universal health coverage.

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Solidarity, Coalition and Strategy: Health Insurance Reform in the South Korea

Cited by 2 publications

References 33 publications

The experiences of merging health insurance funds in South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia: a cross-country comparative study

The experiences of merging health insurance funds in South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, and Indonesia: a cross-country comparative study

The Experiences of Merging Health Insurance Funds in Turkey, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia: What lessons can be learned?

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