ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the developmental pathway of Korea’s national health insurance from its very formation through universalisation to financial integration. Introduced in large firms in 1977 as a compulsory social insurance programme, and extending its coverage to the whole nation in 1989, national health insurance in Korea is often praised as the ‘most striking example’ of the countries which used sufficient resources to subsidise the extension of their formal social insurance schemes (van Ginneken, 1999, p.57). Unlike a socialised national health insurance system, which provides health services as of right, it is a contributory social insurance provision where health services are conditional on contributions; if contributions are not collected for more than two months, one’s health insurance is no longer valid. Health assistance, as part of public assistance, although potentially stigmatising, covers everyone who cannot afford to pay health insurance contributions.
