Total Health Spending, USD PPP Per Capita (2019): $3,384

(Note: “Health spending measures the final consumption of health care goods and services (i.e. current health expenditure) including personal health care (curative care, rehabilitative care, long-term care, ancillary services and medical goods) and collective services (prevention and public health services as well as health administration), but excluding spending on investments. Health care is financed through a mix of financing arrangements including government spending and compulsory health insurance (“Government/compulsory”) as well as voluntary health insurance and private funds such as households’ out-of-pocket payments, NGOs and private corporations (“Voluntary”). This indicator is presented as a total and by type of financing (“Government/compulsory”, “Voluntary”, “Out-of-pocket”) and is measured as a share of GDP, as a share of total health spending and in USD per capita (using economy-wide PPPs).”

Source: OECD (2021), Health spending (indicator). doi: 10.1787/8643de7e-en (Accessed on 20 January 2021).

Current Health Expenditure Per Capita (USD) (2016): $2,044
Current Health Expenditure as Percentage of Gross Domestic Product (%) (2016): 7.3%
Domestic General Government Health Expenditure as Percentage of General Government Expenditure (%) (2016): 13.5%
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 10% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA
Population with household expenditures on health greater than 25% of total household expenditure or income (2009-2015) (%): NA

Source: World health statistics 2019: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

“There are about 35 million people with private insurance, making up 70% of the population, as of 2017. The monthly average premium for each household is estimated to be 230,000 won (USD 209) as of 2014, and the total health expenditure by household is 178,000 won (USD 161) on average (Seo et al. 2016). Certainly, a considerable amount is being spent on private insurance other than health services, medical drugs, disposable items, etc. Considering that the health insurance premium for each insured resident is 94,000 won (USD 85), they spend large amounts on private insurance premiums.”

Source: Lee, Y., Kim, S., Kim, S. Y., & Kim, G. (2019). Ethical Consideration of National Health Insurance Reform for Universal Health Coverage in the Republic of Korea. Asian bioethics review, 11(1), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-019-00079-1.

“At 7.2%, Korea’s health expenditure is lower than the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of 8.9%; however, considering life expectancy of 82.3 years and an infant mortality rate of 3 per 1000, it can nevertheless be assumed that Korea has a good health system (OECD 2016). There is indeed a high degree of freedom of choice for healthcare providers, short waiting time, and world-class quality of treatment and care for acute diseases (OECD 2012). Thus, it may seem that Korea succeeds in providing high-quality health services, at a relatively low level of spending. This achievement, however, comes at a cost; at 63.4%, the rate of health service coverage is insufficient, and the rate of out-of-pocket health expenditure is 36.8%, exceeding the OECD average of 20.5% (Kim 2017). The proportion of catastrophic health expenditure has risen from 1.6% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2015, resulting in about 440,000 middle-class households falling below the middle-class level, which is six times the OECD average of 0.7% (OECD 2016).

“In Korea, the issue of reinforcing the benefits and financial coverage of the National Health Insurance (NHI) is a repetitive one, especially for the underprivileged population (Lee et al. 2012).”

Source: Lee, Y., Kim, S., Kim, S. Y., & Kim, G. (2019). Ethical Consideration of National Health Insurance Reform for Universal Health Coverage in the Republic of Korea. Asian bioethics review, 11(1), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-019-00079-1.

“Health expenditure has increased rapidly. Total health expenditure as a percentage of GDP has doubled in the last 15 years, from 3.7% in 1995 to 7.4% in 2011. For the last 10 years, the mean annual real growth rate of health expenditure was greater than that of GDP. The Republic of Korea has experienced one of the highest rates of increase in health expenditure among OECD countries. With stagnant economic growth and rapid ageing of the population, rising health expenditure is a becoming a major concern. For example, the proportion of health expenditure for the elderly has increased from 19.3% in 2002 to 34.4% in 2012.

“Although the Republic of Korea has a social health insurance system covering the entire population, public expenditure accounted for 55% of total health expenditure in 2011, an increase from 39% in 1995. The percentage of OOP payments of total health expenditure has decreased from 52% in 1995 to 35% in 2011. Due to the nature of the contribution-based health insurance system, the role of Government (tax-based) spending is relatively small in health-care financing.”

Source: World Health Organization. Regional Office for the Western Pacific. (‎2015)‎. Republic of Korea health system review. Manila: WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific.

“The major mechanism for health-care financing in Korea is social (national) health insurance, covering the entire population. Most of the medical care services, except very new costly technology with uncertain cost effectiveness, are included in the benefits package, but with relatively high cost-sharing. The contribution for health insurance is set as the percentage of income or other measures of the ability to pay. Social health insurance has a single payer system with a uniform contribution rate and benefits package for the insured. The share of social health insurance contribution in total health expenditure has increased from 30.9% in 1990 to 43.6% in 2011. The majority of health-care providers are in the private sector (about 90% of hospitals are private), and the role of Government budget allocation in total health expenditure is relatively small, at just 11.7% in 2011.

“As the share of social health insurance in total health expenditure has increased, the share of OOP [Out Of Pocket] payments has decreased from 55.7% in 1990 to 35.2% in 2011. OOP payments in social insurance consist of copayment for covered services and full payment for uncovered services (those services not included in the benefits package). Although the share of OOP payment in total health expenditure has steadily decreased, it is still higher than that in other OECD countries and has caused concern about insufficient financial protection. The role of VHI [Voluntary Health Insurance] in health-care financing has been increasing but its share of total health expenditure is still about 5%.”

Source: World Health Organization. Regional Office for the Western Pacific. (‎2015)‎. Republic of Korea health system review. Manila: WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific.

Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and several other nations.

Page last updated May 19, 2021 by Doug McVay, Editor.