The health insurance systems in highly developed East and Southeast Asian nations have been praised by journalists in the United States as universal, accessible, and equitable (Goldrick Citation2020; Reid Citation2008; Scott Citation2020). Journalist T. R. Reid’s PBS documentary Sick Around the World (Citation2008) has been used widely by scholars in classrooms across the United States. The documentary illustrates how the state-led communitarian Japanese and Taiwanese health insurance system ensured healthcare equity, in contrast to the United States’ market-driven health insurance that covers too few patients at too high costs. Similarly, Dr. William A. Haseltine (Citation2013), a public intellectual and former professor at Harvard Medical School, wrote a book praising Singapore’s ability to balance public expenditures on healthcare and to ensure a robust healthcare market that allows competitive healthcare providers to provide excellent private care for those who can pay.Footnote1 Likewise, the World Health Organization (Citation2020) has specifically linked South Korea’s initial success at managing the COVID-19 pandemic with its development of universal health care.
