Korea introduced three major health-care reforms: in financing (1999), pharmaceuticals (2000), and provider payment (2001). In these three reforms, new government policies merged more than 350 health insurance societies into a single payer, separated drug prescribing by physicians from dispensing by pharmacists, and attempted to introduce a new prospective payment system. The change of government, the president’s keen interest in health policy, and democratization in public policy process toward a more pluralist context opened a policy window for reform. Civic groups played an active role in the policy process by shaping the proposals for reform —a major change from the previous policy process that was dominated by government bureaucrats. However, more pluralistic policy process also allowed key interest groups to intervene at critical points in implementation (sometimes in support, sometimes in opposition), with smaller political costs than previously.

Strong support by the rural population and labor unions contributed to the financing reform. In the pharmaceutical reform, which was a big threat to physician income, the president and civic groups succeeded in quickly setting the reform agenda; the medical profession was unable to block the adoption of the reform but their strikes influenced the content of the reform during implementation. Physician strikes also helped them block the implementation of the payment reform. Future reform efforts in Korea will need to consider the political management of vested interest groups and the design of strategies for both scope and sequencing of policy reforms.

Soonman Kwon is Professor of Health Economics and Policy, and Director of the BK (Brain Korea) Center for Aging and Health Policy in Seoul National University, South Korea. After he received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he was assistant professor of public policy at the University of Southern California in 1993-96. Prof. Kwon has held visiting positions at Harvard School of Public Health (Fulbright Scholar and Tekemi Fellow), London School of Economics (Chevening Scholar), Univ. of Trier of Germany (DAAD Scholar), and Univ of Toronto. He is on the editorial boards of Social Science and Medicine (Elsevier), Health Economics Policy and Law (Cambridge U Press), and Health Systems in Transition (HiT, European Observatory). He has occasionally worked as a short-term consultant of WHO, ILO, and GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) on health financing and policy in China, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam. He has also been a consultant of Korean government for the evaluation of its development aid programs in North Korea, Ecuador, Fiji, Mexico and Peru.

Peter Henry's research on emerging markets provides fundamental insights about the impact of economic reform on the lives of people in developing countries. It uses theory and data to grapple objectively with some of the most important and contentious economic questions of our time: Does debt relief help or hurt poor countries? Should emerging nations permit capital to flow freely in and out of their economies? Is it possible to reduce inflation without undermining economic growth? Peter's answers to these questions appear in the leading academic journals and have led him to testify before the U.S. Congress and various United Nations Ambassadors.

Peter is Konosuke Matsushita Professor of International Economics, the John and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar, and Associate Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2000-2001 he was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. The National Science Foundation's Early CAREER Development Program supported his research and teaching from 2001-2006. In 2004 Peter participated in the Copenhagen Consensus, an international conference on how to make the most efficient use of the world's scarcest resources. The Economist magazine named the published proceedings of the conference one of the best business books of 2004.

Peter received his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997. While in graduate school, he served as a consultant to the Governors of the Bank of Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). His research at the ECCB contributed to the intellectual foundation for establishing the first stock market in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Area.

Prior to attending MIT, Peter was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he received a BA in mathematics and a Full Blue in basketball. He also holds a BA in economics from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a Morehead Scholar, a National Merit Scholar, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Marshall Scholar-Elect, a reserve wide receiver on the varsity football team, and a finalist in the 1991 campus-wide slam-dunk competition.

Born in Jamaica, Peter became a U.S. citizen in 1986. His wife of 12 years, Lisa J. Nelson, received her BA and MD from Yale University. She is a child psychiatrist and was a Glaxo Welcome Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association from 1995 to 1997. They have four sons: Christian Blair, Langston Alexander, Hayden Montgomery, and Harrison Elbert.

Compared to other Communist parties that were falling apart in the 1980s, the China Communist Party's success since 1978 is extraordinary. Deng did not start opening and reform, but he made it work. How? What kind of person was he? How was he prepared for his job? One important strategy was setting goals but not drawing bluebrints. He tried experiments, learnt from them, and then let new institutions develop organically. His key experiments were in Guangdong and Fujian. What were the politics and the economics of these experiments and what did they learn?

Ezra Vogel is Henry Ford II Research Professor of Social Sciences at Harvard, honorary director of the Program on US-Japan Relations and former director of Harvard's East Asia Research Center. He was also the second chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies, the first director of the Harvard University Asia Center and former director for the Program on US-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1967. Vogel holds a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan, a PhD from Harvard and ten honorary degrees. He received the Japan Foundation Prize in 1996 and lectures frequently in Asia. Professor Vogel is currently writing a biography of Deng Xiaoping.

This talk is part of the Stanford China Program Winter 2009 China Seminar Series titled "30 Years of Reform and Opening in China: How Far from the Cage?"

Dr. Gilley earned his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Toronto. He went on to finish his M.Phil. in Economics at the University of Oxford and his Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton University.

Research Focus
Dr. Gilley’s research centers on democracy, legitimacy, and global politics. He is a specialist on the comparative politics of China and Asia.

Community Engagements/Service
Dr. Gilley is a frequent advisor to governments and NGOs on matters of democracy and human rights in Asia. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy and as a programme evaluator for Radio Free Asia’s Mandarin Service.