소득계층별 의료접근성 분석과 국민건강보험 보장률의 재해석

Prior studies have indicated that the non-covered medical service under national health insurance is the main cause of various problems in health care system. Since unlike the covered medical service, the decision of offering non-covered medical service and its price is delegated to medical suppliers, there is no credible information regarding the non-covered medical service and it can hardly be doubted that the coverage rate calculated by the government is incredible as well. Utilizing most recent data from 2011 to 2015 of the Korean Health Panel, this study calculate the coverage rate by income level based on the information obtained from not the medical suppliers but the patients. It is presented that the coverage rates in this study is lower than that published by the government and there is no a hugh difference two coverage rates. The gap between two coverage rates is, however, significant when it comes to income level and occupational group. In addition to calculating the coverage rate, this study aims to make a close inquiry into the disparate coverage rate among people in different income groups. Regression results show that the high coverage rate for the low income people boils down to their vulnerable access to non-covered medical service of them. That is because the coverage rate increases as the consumption amount of the non-covered medical service which is a component part of the denominator of the formula for the coverage rate decreases. That is, the high coverage rate for the low income people is not the pros but cons of the national health insurance in Korea, which is resulted from the non-covered medical service. This further erodes the principle of equity, which is one of the main roles of the public insurance. If the non-covered medical service contains only non-essential services, losing fairness is not necessarily considered as a serious social problem. Essential medical services are, however, dealt as non-covered medical service. Thus, the government must deal with the non-covered medical service as the covered medical service and monitor the decision of any offering medical service and its price.