This study analyzed the health status and the equity in medical carp utilization of the elderly among socioeconomically in korea.
Korean society has had the medical security system covering al Korean since July, 1989. In spite of the character of soci...
This study analyzed the health status and the equity in medical carp utilization of the elderly among socioeconomically in korea.
Korean society has had the medical security system covering al Korean since July, 1989. In spite of the character of social insurance in the national health insurance system in Korea, the system has man: limitation in terms of limited coverage and relatively high medical care expenditure, and so there can be still limited accessibility of medical care among socio-economically lower groups. Still, recent studies or equity in medical care utilization has little differences among socio-economic groups. But the majority of the studies have limitatior in that they analyzed the equity in medical care utilization among socio-economic groups only quantitatively and they did not consider the health status of the objects. Many studies related with health status has consistently shown that the lower income groups or educationally lower groups have worse health status resulting higher need based use for them and there are qualitative differences of medical care among socio-economic groups. These results shows that there can be differences of need based use among socio-economic groups.
On the ground of the results of these theoretical and empirical studies, this study hypothesized that : (1) There are differences of health status among socio-economic groups, (2) There is quantitative or qualitative inequity in medical care utilization among socio-economic groups, (3) The medical care utilization is affected by health status and socio-economic groups.
For the analysis, this study used the '2001 national health-nutrition survey' raw data of Korea institute for health and social welfares. This study selected the data of old population over age 65 and the number of data was 3,289.
The major findings of this study are as follows:
1. The analysis of perceived health status, functional health status and chronic morbidity showed differences among socio-economic groups : The lower the socio-economic groups, the worse the health status.
2. The analysis after controlling the determinants of health status showed that the medical care utilization was not affected quantitatively, but affected qualitatively by socio-economic groups. In qualitative respects, the higher the income and education, the better medical service they can have. But there was no difference in the proportion of medical care expenditure to income of old population among socio-economic groups : While the lower group paid lower medical cost, the higher group paid higher medical cost. This results showed that there was qualitative differences in medical care utilization among socio-economic groups.
3. The analysis of health status and medical care utilization show direct relation between perceived health status, functional health state chronic morbidity and the amount of medical services : The better th health status, the smaller the amount of medical services. The heal status also affected the quality of medical services, resulting that ti worse the health status, the better medical services they used. Ti analysis also showed that the proportion of medical care expenditure was related with perceived health status, functional health status, nl with chronic morbidity : The worse the perceived health status ar functional health status, the higher the proportion of medical cal expenditure. The analysis also showed that the need based use was related with health status : The worse the perceived health status; functional health status and chronic morbidity, the higher the nee based use.
4. The effect analysis resulting from pass analysis showed that th direct, indirect effect of socio-economic groups affecting medical car utilization and the direct effect of heath status affecting medical car utilization are different in quantitative and qualitative respect. I quantitative respects, the direct effect of heath status affecting medics care utilization is higher than the direct, indirect effect o socio-economic groups affecting medical care utilization and so then is quantitative equity in medical care utilization of Korean olc population among socio-economic groups. But in qualitative respects the direct, indirect effect of socio-economic groups affecting medical care utilization are higher than the direct effect of heath status affecting medical care utilization and so there is qualitative inequity it medical care utilization of Korean old population among socio-economic groups.
In summary, there is quantitative equity in medical care utilization of Korean old population among socio-economic groups but there is qualitative inequity in medical care utilization of Korean old population among socio-economic groups. This study implies the need of social welfare policy that can reduce the qualitative inequity among socio-economic groups.