Benefits for Foreigners Called into Question
The number of foreigners covered by the national health insurance of South Korea exceeded 1.2 million this year and the number of dependents registered by them is close to 200,000. Under the circumstances, a YouTube video posted by a Chinese woman is causing controversy.
According to this video, the woman working for a South Korean company visited a South Korean hospital with her mother, a cerebral aneurysm patient living in China, in September last year. She registered her mother as a dependent before the visit, and the dependent received various medical treatments and was discharged from the hospital last month.
The Chinese woman showed her receipt. She paid 1,498,310 won in total whereas the total medical expenses amounted to 14 million won. In other words, the national health insurance covered approximately 90 percent of her hospital bills. In addition, she reduced her actual payment to less than 200,000 won using her private health insurance.
At present, any foreigner who has resided in South Korea for at least six months can be covered by the national health insurance. In addition, any dependent registered by a foreigner working for a South Korean company and covered by the insurance via the company can enjoy the same insurance benefits as South Koreans regardless of his or her period of residence in South Korea. An increasing number of South Koreans are calling this into question.
According to the National Health Insurance Service, a total of 4,559,000 foreigners received medical treatments using the insurance for the past five years and the total insurance benefits for them amount to 3,662.1 billion won. Chinese enjoyed more than 70 percent of the benefits and the foreigners include many who stayed in South Korea very temporarily just for treatment purposes. Besides, illegal insurance benefit reception by foreigners amounted to more than 31.6 billion won from 2015 to the first half of 2020.