In this event, Dr. Jaeun Shin will discuss the historical and policy background of expanded private health insurance in South Korea. Looking at the public-private mix of health care financing and its impacts, Shin conducted a comparative study of thirty member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) during the period 1980 to 2007 to ask whether private health insurance can counterbalance limited government financing, high out-of-pocket payments, and the persistent financial deficit of South Korea’s National Health Insurance system.

The panel analyses of OECD Health Data from 2009 suggest that private health insurance financing is unlikely to reduce government spending on health care and social security. Also, Shin found little evidence that out-of-pocket payments will be replaced by private health insurance payments. Private health insurance payments, however, are found to have a statistically significant positive association with total spending on health care, which indicates that the coverage effect of private health insurance—in addition to national health insurance—may exceed the efficiency gain through the market competition that private insurers may deliver to the health care sector. These findings leave it unclear whether private initiatives in health care financing will be as effective as the policy advocates hope for, in dealing with the challenges of national health insurance in South Korea. Shin suggests that further studies of how public and private insurers, and providers and consumers interplay in response to  a given structure of private-public mix in financing are warranted to decide the right balance between private coverage and publicly provided universal coverage.

The session will focus on the social, political and economic changes that have been taking place in Turkey, and its implications for the U.S.-Turkey relations. Panelist will discuss Turkey’s EU process, shift in current Turkish foreign policy, the recent flotilla incident, and increasing trade and investment relations with neighboring countries.

Soli Ozel is Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Istanbul Kadir Has University. He received his M.A. from School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Ozel taught at University of California- Santa Cruz, Johns Hopkins University, University of Washington, Hebrew University, and Bogazici University (Istanbul). Ozel's articles and op-eds appear in a wide variety of leading newspapers in Turkey and elsewhere around the world. Currently, he is a columnist for the Turkish Haberturk newspaper and a frequent contributor to The Washington Post. Most recently, he co-authored the report “Rebuilding a Partnership: Turkish-American Relations for a New Era.”
 
Abdullah Akyuz received his M.A. in Economics from the University of California-Davis and graduated from Wharton School's Advanced Management Program. He served as an economist on the Capital Markets Board (the Turkish equivalent of the SEC), Director and later Executive Vice-Chairman at the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), Board Member of the ISE-Settlement and Custody Bank, Inc., and a member of the Turkish Treasury’s Domestic Borrowing Advisory Board. In 1999, Mr. Akyuz joined Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) as President of  TUSIAD's Washington Representative Office.

RSVP: http://www.stanford.edu/group/mediterranean/feb_rsvp.fb

Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum. Co-sponsored by the Europe Center, Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and Turkish Student Association at Stanford.

In this study, we discuss the historical and policy background of expanded private health insurance in South Korea. Looking at the public-private mix of health care financing and its impacts, we conduct a comparative study of 30 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) over the period 1980–2007 to ask whether private health insurance can counterbalance limited government financing, high out-of-pocket payments, and the persistent financial deficit of South Korea’s National Health Insurance system. The panel analyses of OECD Health Data 2009 suggest that private health insurance financing is unlikely to reduce government spending on health care and social security. Also we find little evidence that out-of-pocket payments will be replaced by private health insurance payments. Private health insurance payments, however, are found to have a statistically significant positive association with total spending on health care, which indicates that the coverage effect of private health insurance—in addition to national health insurance—may exceed the efficiency gain through the market competition that private insurers may deliver to the health care sector. These findings leave it unclear whether private initiatives in health care financing will be as effective as the policy advocates hope for, in dealing with the challenges of national health insurance in South Korea. Further studies of how public and private insurers, and providers and consumers interplay in response to  a given structure of private-public mix in financing are warranted to decide the right balance between private coverage and publicly provided universal coverage.

Asian Biotech:  Ethics and Communities of Fate is the title of a new book that Prof. Ong has co-edited with Nancy N. Chen.  It offers the first overview of Asia’s emerging initiatives in the biosciences.  Its case studies include blood collection in Singapore and China; stem-cell research in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan; genetically modified foods in China; and clinical trials in India.  Such projects vary by country, as do the policies that are associated with them.  Discernible nevertheless is a significant trend toward state entrepreneurialism in Asian biotechnology.  Prof. Ong will also explore how political thinking and ethical reasoning are converging around the biosciences in Asia.  Copies of Asian Biotech will be available for signing and purchase at the talk.

Aihwa Ong studies how the interactions of capitalism, technology, politics, and ethics crystallize global situations, frame spaces of problematization, and generate situated solutions.  With these matters in mind, she has done field research in Southeast Asia, Southern China, and California.  A forthcoming volume is Worlding Cities:  Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global.  Prior publications include Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline (2nd ed., 2010); Privatizing China:  Socialism from Afar (co-edited, 2008); Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems (co-edited, 2005); Flexible Citizenship:  The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (1999); Neoliberalism as Exception:  Mutations in Citizenshipand Sovereignty (2006); and Buddha is Hiding:  Refugees, Citizenship, the New America (2003).  Prof. Ong has received many awards and has lectured at universities around the world.  She chairs of the US National Committee for the Pacific Science Association.  Her 1982 PhD is from Columbia University.