Testing the Convergence Hypothesis of Health Care Expenditure: Empirical Evidence from Korea

This research explores the convergence of health care expenditure in Korea with different income groups and the world level by applying different concepts of convergence, including growth rates, trends, differences as well as rationality and statistical variation of health care expenditure. The empirical evidence shows that, in general, the health care expenditure in Korea seems to be on the right track in terms of both level and difference, given the fact that convergence exists with the expenditures of the high income group and the world level. It is also worth mentioning that the Korean public health care system has been performing much better than its private health care counterpart. Such a result suggests that the private health care system has to be more elaborately and systematically managed through the establishment of an operational policy to stimulate an increase in private health care expenditure.