KOREAN INSURERS OPPOSE GOVERNMENT HEALTH REGULATIONS

The heads of the Korea Life Insurance Association (KLIA) and of the General Insurance Association of Korea (GIA) have jointly criticised proposals from the Ministry of Health to reform South Korea’s health insurance system. A committee set up by the government has announced a regulatory plan which KLIA chairman Namkoong Hoon and GIA chairman Ahn Kong-hyuk said would “obliterate” Korea’s health industry. They particularly criticised the proposal that private health insurers be barred from covering the cost that an individual is supposed to bear under the National Health Insurance system. Individuals are supposed to pay 30% of medical costs that are covered by the National Health system, in order to discourage abuse of the system, with frivolous use of National Health facilities being made when the claimant bears no cost. The KLIA and GIA said that the revised regulation was “unprecedented”, and that it was based on the false premise that that private health insurance undermined the financial stability of the National Health system.