Health Policy in the Asian NIEs

This paper compares the health policies of Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan with the purpose of drawing policy lessons. The study finds two distinct policy clusters: Hong Kong and Singapore on the one hand, and Korea and Taiwan on the other. With respect to provision of health care, the former rely largely on public hospitals for delivering inpatient care while the latter rely on private hospitals. In matters of financing, they are similar in that out‐of‐pocket is a major source of financing in all four countries. However, they are also different because Korea and Taiwan have universal health insurance while the city states do not. The study concludes that public provision of hospital care, as in Hong Kong and Singapore, yields more favourable outcomes than many mainstream economists would have us believe. Conversely, private provision in combination with social insurance, as found in Korea and Taiwan, severely undermines efforts to contain health care costs.