1970-2014 Current Health Expenditures and National Health Accounts in Korea: Application of SHA2011 / 보건행정학회지

ABSTRACT

A new manual of System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011, was published jointly by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Eurostat, and World Health Organization in 2011. This offers more complete coverage than the previous version, SHA 1.0, within the functional classification in areas such as prevention and a precise approach for tracking financing in the health care sector using the new classification of financing schemes. This paper aims to demonstrate current health expenditure (CHE) and National Health Accounts of the years 1970-2014 constructed according to the SHA2011. Data sources for public financing include budget and settlement documents of the government, various statistics from the National Health Insurance, and others. In the case of private financing, an estimation of total revenue by provider groups is made from the Economic Census data and the household income and expenditure survey, Korean healthcare panel study, etc. are used to allocate those totals into functional classifications. CHE was 105 trillion won in 2014, which accounts for 7.1% of Korea's gross domestic product. It was a big increase of 7.7 trillion won, 7.9%, from the previous year. Public share (government and compulsory schemes) accounting for 56.5% of the CHE in 2014 was still much lower than the OECD average of about 73%. With these estimates, it is possible to compare health expenditures of Korea and other countries better. Awareness and appreciation of the need and gains from applying SHA2011 for the health expenditure classification are expected to increase as OECD health expenditure figures get more frequently quoted among health policy makers.