현행 의료보험제도의 근본문제와 개혁방안 = Fundamental Problems of the Nation' s Health Insurance System and Plausible Reform Policy Alternatives

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since 1989 when the nation's Health Care System expanded its scope to the entire population, the system has been the most universal social security program in the nation. The nation's Health Care System, however, still has many problems. Those problems include: 1) rapidly increasing health care costs, 2) high levels of co-payment, yet low levels of benefit, 3) a wide range of differences in financial stability among insurance societies and insurance programs, and 4) having too many small-sized insurance societies.
To address these problems at the most fundamental level, two reform strategies are suggested One of them is to enhance cost-consciousness among health care providers by introducing more effective provider-payment schemes. The other is to expand the size of insurance societies. In particular, the latter strategy is expected to bring about a range of positive effects in addition to economies of scale in the operation of the system.
Each reform strategy has a range of policy alternatives, and some of them are more effective than others yet more difficult to implement depending upon the degree of changes they might bring about. By combining two policy alternatives, one from each of the two strategies, a range of reform policy alternatives can be developed To envision the right direction toward which the nation's current health insurance system should evolve, it is imperative to thoroughly weigh the benefit and cost of these policy alternatives, and such comparison should be based on empirical data.