Last year's health insurance drug cost was 26.2 trillion won...Up 8.5% from a year ago

Last year, Korea's health insurance benefit drug cost recorded KRW 26.99 trillion, up 8.5% from a year ago.

The National Health Insurance Service explained that the increase in drug spending was twice as high as last year's total cost increase of 4.7%, and the share of medical expenses also rose 0.8 percentage points to 23.6%.

In particular, the cost of cancer and rare and incurable diseases, which are essential drugs directly related to life, increased by around 10% last year, exceeding the overall drug cost increase rate.

By age group, drug costs for patients in their 60s accounted for a quarter of the total with KRW 6.6 trillion, followed by those in their 70s (5.2 trillion won), those in their 50s (4.4 trillion won), and those in their 80s (3.1 trillion won).

According to health statistics published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) last year, 18% of Korea's current medical expenses were spent on drugs in 2022, higher than the OECD average of 14.2%.