In an interview with CommonWealth Magazine, Professor Tung Yu-chi of National Taiwan University’s Institute of Health Policy and Management, a longtime researcher of the National Health Insurance (NHI), said that Korea’s understanding of healthcare expenditure as an investment into health rather than a cost, has resulted in superior health indicators in the country compared to Taiwan, despite Taiwan being ranked No. 1 in Numbeo’s Health Care Index for six consecutive years.

Korea’s healthcare expenditure accounted for 8.4 percent of GDP in 2020, while the figure for Taiwan, with a slightly higher per-capita GDP than Korea, was only 6.1 percent, significantly lower than the OECD averages of 9.6 percent. Notably, as Korea does not have a global budget and the country’s politics does not often interfere with health policy, health spending has been able to rise steadily to reach the current 7.09 percent of GDP. As for the copayments, Taiwan has a fixed out-of-pocket amounts, while Korea uses a set rate, resulting in higher copayments for Korean patients.

Professor Tung also pointed out that as the Korean government has dedicated more resources to healthcare, preventative care is also included in the country’s national healthcare system. For Taiwan, Professor Tung said that in addition to raising NHI premium rates, long-term solutions such as promoting health maintenance and disease prevention should be implemented to ensure the sustainability of the NHI.

[2024-4-1/CommonWealth Magazine]