Health and Welfare Policy Forum 2022.1 No.303, pp.106-115
Abstract
Although the legacies of health care environment vary somewhat across different countries, there also exist a series of common denominators directly related to the unprecedented crisis we are currently facing. The typical difficulties which most countries are now experiencing include thegrowing burden of support for current and future generations owing to aging population, the ever-increasing medical expenses that exceed the economic growth rate due to a fixed low growth rate, an outdated health care use system that cannot appropriately respond to the diversified and fragmented health care needs, and the malfunctioning innovative technologies which cannot accommodate institutional request because of confrontation between public and innovation stakeholders. In this context, this paper attempts to review the recent trends in health care reform carried out by selected advanced countries in the face of the COVID-19 crisis and to present some policy implications for Korea. Our analysis of the reform trends may serve as a guideline in designing alternative health care policies in Korea.
