(Health Korea News / Yu Ji-in) It was found that there are differences in mortality rates depending on the type of national health insurance and insurance premium.
This is the result of a research team including Professor Kang Hee-taek of the Department of Family Medicine at Severance Hospital, Assistant Professor Kim Yong-hoon of the Department of Biomedical Systems and Information at Yonsei University College of Medicine, Professor Kim Ye-seul of the Department of Family Medicine at Chungbuk National University Hospital, and Professor Kim Jeong-yeon of the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Seoul City University analyzing data from the National Health Insurance Corporation. The results of the analysis showed that the mortality rate of regional subscribers was higher than that of employees, and the lower the income level, the higher the risk of death from diseases such as cancer. Concerns are raised that health inequality may become entrenched.
The research team conducted a study on 452,706 people included in the National Health Insurance Corporation Health Screening Cohort (2002-2019) to determine the effect of health insurance type and insurance premiums on mortality.
First, we analyzed the mortality rate of employees (285,859 people) working at general companies and local subscribers (166,847 people) including the self-employed, according to the type of health insurance. As a result, the overall mortality rate of local subscribers was 1.13 times higher for men and 1.18 times higher for women than for employees.
By cause of death, the mortality rate of local subscribers was higher due to cancer (1.06 times for men and 1.12 times for women), cardiovascular disease (1.2 times for women), cerebrovascular disease (1.21 times for men and 1.21 times for women), pneumonia (1.12 times for men), suicide (1.14 times for men and 1.35 times for women), and external causes (1.27 times for men and 1.21 times for women).
The research team also confirmed the relationship between income level and mortality rate. Based on the insurance premiums paid, employees and local subscribers were divided into three groups: upper, middle, and lower.
At this time, the mortality rate of subscribers in the lower group was up to twice as high as that of subscribers in the upper group, regardless of health insurance type.
Professor Kang Hee-taek said, “We confirmed that the risk of death increases due to the increase in disease incidence and external causes depending on the type of health insurance subscription and income level.” He added, “It seems that the differences in opportunities to receive checkups, types of insurance subscription, and differences in accessibility to medical care by income level are major causes, so policy support is needed to eliminate health inequality.”
The results of this study were published in the latest issue of ‘BMC Public Health’.
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