HEALTH insurance coverage for foreigners living in South Korea is now a campaign issue in the country's upcoming presidential elections.
The issue is becoming a hot topic with both candidates from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) and ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) getting into the fray with differing positions.
According to a Korea Times report, PPP candidate Yoon Suk-yeol said he will apply more stringent standards to screen foreigners living in South Korea, when deciding who gets National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) coverage.
Yoon, who leads major public opinion polls, said this is to limit NHIS coverage and make it less available to their family members or other dependents.
He described foreigners as "putting their spoons on meal tables that have been prepared for Korean citizens through their hard efforts for the past 40 years."
Yoon seems to be targeting Chinese residents as he said eight out of 10 people covered the most by the NHIS last year were Chinese.
He added that six of the ten were the foreigners' dependents.
The highest amount reimbursed to a Chinese dependent was about 3.3 billion won (US$2.72 million), while having paid only 10 per cent of their medical bills.
Yoon said in a Facebook posting that to be eligible for NHIS coverage, foreigners are required to live in South Korea for at least six months, but their dependents were not subject to such requirements.
"It allows them to come to the country to take advantage of the service and leave soon after they are done with their medical treatments," he said.
In response, DPK presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung disagreed with Yoon and told him to stop his politics that encouraged hatred of foreigners.
"The fact is that the country has profited more than 500 billion won from foreign national residents' insurance payments," Lee said, adding that South Koreans have benefited more from the foreigners participation.
Lee described Yoon's campaign as xenophobic and it was an ultra-conservative populist pledge that was hazardous to the country.
"Instigating hatred and discrimination to encourage conflict and divide the country is old-style Yeouido politics," said Lee, referring to the Seoul district where the parliament is located.
The Korea Times said that according to the NHIS, over 1.2 million residents of foreign nationality in the country have made monthly payments to the national insurance service in 2020.
It amounted to over 1.5 trillion won (US$1.24 billion) while their total amount of reimbursements for the same period amounted to less than 960 billion won.
This brought NHIS a net profit of over 580 billion won.
The health insurance service for foreign nationals also made continuous profits from 2018 to 2020, with over one trillion won in total profits.
However, when taking into account South Korean citizens, the NHIS suffered a net loss in 2020.
The NHIS said it collected insurance payments of over 73.4 trillion won but reimbursed more than 73.7 trillion won, a net loss of more than 350 billion won.
An NHIS official said that since 2019, it became mandatory for foreign workers to come under the insurance scheme and this led to an increase in its net profit amount each year.