ABSTRACT
Every health care system has its own characteristics that reflect the nation’s cultural, economic, and political features. The South Korean (henceforth, Korean) health care system, with its dramatic development over the past three decades, has its own unique features and challenges. The Korean health care system started as a parsimonious model with limited benefit, for a politically and fiscally easier adoption. When health care cost containment along with welfare state retrenchment was a dominant global trend, public health insurance in Korea was focusing on the expansion of coverage. It is intriguing to see that different health systems started with the same goals, but later developed in somewhat different ways according to their own historical, cultural, and institutional conditions.
