• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.203-226
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• 2010

Using the Korean Welfare Panel Study, this study examines the labor-market activities of uninsured persons and discusses policy implications for reforming the National Pension Scheme in Korea. First, despite the short observation period, the data show that pension status is not a static state and can be better understood in terms of dynamic processes. Second, in addition to frequent changes in income-earning activities, complex criteria for pension coverage cause substantial transitions in pension status. Third, a portion of uninsured persons involve in income-earning activities but they tend to face poor working conditions as well as unstable employment. Overall, this study suggests that building solid foundations for developing a financially sustainable and reliable social protection system is more important than rapid increase in pension coverage.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2002

Objective : To estimate the socioeconomic costs of obesity in Korea,1998. Methods : The 1998 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(1998 NHNES) data was used and 10,880 persons who had taken health examinations were selected for study. Essential hypertension, NIDDM(non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), dyslipidemia, osteoarthritis, coronary heart disease, stroke were included as obesity related disease. The data of direct costs of obesity was obtained from the National Federation of Medical Insurance. The category of indirect costs was the loss of productivity caused by premature death and admission, time costs, traffic costs, nursing fees due to obesity. Multiple logistic regression model was developed to estimate prevalence odds ratio by obesity class adjusted demographic and socio-ecnomic factors and calculate PAF(Population Attributable Fraction) of obesity on obesity related disease. And we finally calculated the socioeconomic costs of obesity in relation to BMI with PAF. Results : The direct costs of obesity were 2,126 billion${\sim}965$ billion Won in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, and the indirect costs of obesity were 2,099 billion${\sim}1,086$ billion Won. Consequently, in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, the socioeconomic costs of obesity were 4.225 billion${\sim}2,050$ billion Won, which corresponded to about $0.094%{\sim}0.046%$ of GDP and $1.88%{\sim}0.91$ of total health care costs in Korea. Conclusions : Obesity represents a major health problem with significant economic implications for the society. This results are conservative estimates as far as all obesity related disease and all health care and indirect costs were not included due to missing information. further studies are needed to caculate socioeconomic costs of obesity more exactly.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.667-671
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to know the current management status in Korean medical clinics (KMC) and the awareness of Korean medicine doctor. The simple random extraction method from the membership list of 'The Association of Korean Medicine' in 2010 was used for survey. The questionnaire which had used in 2008 was revised, and those were sent to each KMC by mail. A total of 107 data were acquired and frequency analysis was conducted. The result showed that the annual average employees working in each KMC was 2.9 persons and the number of daily outpatient was 33.8 person in 2010. The proportion of sales covered by medical insurance at KMC has been increasing annually as 42.9%, 43.5%, and 44.8% of total sales, whereas the uninsured sales was 57.1%, 56.5%, and 55.2% of total sales in 2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively. All of the responders recognized that the current situation of Korean medical service market was not good and the reason was mainly resulted from undeveloped medical technique, popularized use of functional foods for health and alternative medical care by Western medicine. To expand Korean medical service, the expansion of sales covered by public health medical insurance, government support and advertizement for public relation were needed.