April 9 Would you like silkworm larvae with that?

April marks the beginning of cherry blossom season in Korea, and even though the weather has been unseasonably cold, some trees are beginning to bloom. Monday after work a group of about fifteen co-workers went to the annual Cherry Blossom Festival at Chungnam National University in the Yuseong district of Daejeon. Festival is a bit of an overstatement—we walked in the gathering darkness along a path around the university library lined with cherry blossom trees and food vendors, all of whom were selling corn on the cob, tempura ginseng root, rice cakes stuffed with red bean paste, roasted chestnuts, and stir-fried silkworm larvae (which have a sort of nutty taste and, when washed down with large quantities of rice wine, are not as bad as they sound.)

Unfortunately, the last few weeks I have been bothered by a minor virus infection of my right eye (a problem that recurs every few years) and so I have had to go to an ophthalmologist here in Daejeon. My friend Lee Lim Moo found an ophthalmology clinic (associated with one of the universities) which is supposed to be among the best in the country and we have been there several times for treatment. The hospital in which the clinic is located is modern and spotless. They have a special team which assists “foreigners,” serving as liaison with the various specialists. The equipment is modern and the diagnosis corresponded exactly with the diagnosis provided by my eye doctor in Seattle the last time the problem occurred. There is one major difference, however. My initial visit cost me about $10 for intake with the international support team, about $20 for tests, diagnosis, and prescription, and about $15 to purchase the needed medicine: anti-viral drops, an ointment, and general lubricating drops. Follow-up visits have cost about $10. (These are not deductibles I am talking about here. This is the total cost, with no medical insurance.) In my experience, this is roughly 20% of the cost of equivalent treatment and prescriptions in Seattle.

The cost difference caused me to wonder whether Koreans receive inferior medical care overall. In fact, the average life expectancy of a Korean is 79.10 years, a full year longer than the average life expectancy of an American (78.06 years.) Of course, access to affordable medical care is only one factor in life expectancy; diet and an active communitarian lifestyle are also factors, along with the fact that there are not 280 million guns circulating among the mentally ill of Korea. However, in 2004, the US spent $6,096 per capita on health care (the average for rich people, poor people, insured people, uninsured people, etc.) That’s 15.4% of GDP and rising. Korea spent $1135 per capita (5.5% of GDP) on health care, with better outcomes, as measured in longevity, infant mortality, etc. I don’t pretend to be a health care economist—I’ll leave that to my friend Doug Conrad—or a proponent of a particular health system redesign—my friends Chuck Richards and Bill Blake are the experts in that—but as a pretty good analyst, I can look at inputs and outcomes and know when a system is highly inefficient. What we have in the US doesn’t even really qualify as a system. Oh, and my eye is much better, thank you.

But that doesn’t mean I am an advocate of everything Korean. When I came home to my apartment last night, my ceiling lights did not work. Very irritating. Today I managed to convey to my landlady (who speaks less English than I speak Korean) that there was something wrong. She came to my apartment, flicked the switches several times, acknowledged the problem, called the building electrician, and then, while waiting for him to arrive, looked into all of my cupboards and my refrigerator to see what kind of food I had on hand and then rifled through all the papers on my desk, including all of my medical care receipts. After examining them closely, she expressed concern about my eye, which I assured her was getting better. I guess landladies are the same the world over. The electrician replaced the light switch and now I have light again in my apartment.