Comparative Analysis of the Health Status and National Health Expenditure in the OECD Countries

Abstract

This study evaluates the level of performance of health care system in Korea in terms of health status and national health care expenditures with application of the OECD Health Data and UNDP records for 2003. Panel analysis is applied for the estimation of level of performance of helath care system in Korea compared with the OECD countries. A Two Factor Fixed Effect model is used for all the models for OECD and NHI countries, while a Two Factor Random Effect Model was used for Fee-for-service countries. After careful analyses, the average length of life and national health expenditures per capita in Korea have been found to be quite higher than those estimated from Panel models of all the OECD countries, OECD countrieswith NHI and OECD countries with NHS. But even if health care system and payment remuneration system are similar among countries, it must be recognized that since these systems have been all developed over long periods of time, and have been shaped by cultural, and economic factors, there has to be differences between countries. The econometric analysis used in this study for estimation of performance level of health care system could not take into account this point.