By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Korea is seeing the fastest increase in health spending among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries because of a rapidly aging society.
According to ``OECD Health Data 2009,'' total health spending accounted for 6.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Korea in 2007, 2.1 percentage points lower than the OECD average of 8.9 percent and the fourth-lowest share among OECD member countries, following Turkey, Mexico and Poland.
However, the expenditure is snowballing rapidly in Korea. The growth rate in health spending in Korea reached 9.2 percent annually between 2000 and 2007, which compares with an OECD average of 3.7 percent and is also the highest growth rate among OECD countries. ``The increase in health spending in Korea over the past decade or so has been driven mainly by a rapid rise in public spending on health,'' the report said.
Snowballing health expenditures have to do with the rapid aging of the society, coming from increasing longevity and a plunging birth rate. ``Among OECD countries, Korea registered the greatest gain in life expectancy between 1960 and 2007, with an overall increase in longevity of 27 years, rapidly closing the gap with the average across OECD countries,'' the report said. ``In 1960, life expectancy in Korea was 16 years below the OECD average. By 2007, it stood at 79.4 years, above the OECD average of 79.0,'' it added.
The fertility rate, or the number of babies born per woman, meanwhile, recorded 1.19 last year, which means there won't be many young taxpayers to shoulder the public health expenditure on the snowballing number of senior citizens.
``It increases the burden on the young generation of supporting the senior citizens, causing conflict between generations. A low birth rate causes side effects on the whole society,'' Samsung Economic Research Institute said in a report.
The share of public spending on health in Korea steadily rose from 36 percent of total health spending in 1995 to 55 percent in 2007. It remains well below the OECD average of 73 percent, but it is evident that Korea would also see public health spending rise as the country heads toward a welfare state. Nordic countries like Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, for example, have a ratio of public health spending hovering above 80 percent.
``Since the share for the social welfare sector is continuously increasing in budget each year, the ratio of public spending on health would reach the level of developed countries by the mid 2010s,'' a spokesperson at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said.
The OECD report also showed that Korea is getting better in terms of medical service.
``The number of doctors per 1,000 people in Korea was 1.7 in 2007, the second lowest among OECD countries after Turkey and well below the OECD average of 3.1. However, the number of doctors has increased rapidly over the past two decades. In fact, Korea registered the highest growth rate in the number of doctors among all OECD countries, with the number of doctors per capita more than doubling between 1990 and 2007,'' the report said.
It attributed the rise to newly established medical schools and a higher number of medical students.
As of 2005, 46.6 percent of men smoked everyday, the second highest rate across all OECD countries. For Korean women, however, only 4.6 percent were everyday smokers.
Koreans were thin compared with people of other countries, only 3.5 percent of the adult population was defined as obese in 2005. The country with the highest obesity rate among adults is the United States, with a rate of 34.3 percent in 2006.