smoking is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease cancer copd and asthma while the elderly population currently represents around of the total number of national health insurance beneficiaries they are responsible for around of the total health insurance expenditure hera a in these expenditures represented between and of the entire korean health budget the idf also estimates that expenditure on diabetes will increase from between billion in to billion dollars by the year zhang furthermore while korea spends a large slice of its health budget looking after people with diabetes korean mean expenditure per person with diabetes is relatively low figure