Universal Long-term Care Insurance Program: South Korea’s Experience

South Korea, the most rapidly aging society in the world, introduced a public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program with universal coverage in 2008. This presentation will begin with the socioeconomic and political context of the introduction of the LTCI and explain the finance and provision of LTCI in Korea, compared to the LTCIs of Germany and Japan. It will provide recent evidence on the performance of the LTCI along with its prospects and lessons for other countries.

Hongsoo Kim is an associate professor at the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University (SNU), South Korea, and a 2016-2017 Fulbright Visiting Scholar & Takemi Fellow in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health, United States. Her research areas include aging and health policy, long-term care systems, and health system performance assessment. She is currently involved the Comparative Diabetes Net Value Project led by Dr. Karen Eggleston at Stanford University. She was formerly the scientific committee chair of the Korean Academy of Long-term Care, the Korean Gerontological Society, and the Korean Society of Health Policy and Administration. She received her PhD from New York University, where she worked as assistant professor before she joined SNU.