ABSTRACT

In Chapter 29, Dohyeong Kim and his coauthors present an overview of the South Korean public health systems and how related policies have been formed and implemented, focusing on health care financing and insurance and on national and local public health governance. Specifically, Kim and his coauthors describe the ways in which health systems and policy decisions affect health care and outcomes then examine the major components of public health systems. They also discuss how social, economic, and political factors affect the health insurance and payment systems. The chapter ends with a recent lesson learned from the MERS outbreak in 2015, explaining how the health policy system in South Korea functioned well during the public health crisis.