By Jung Min-ho
As an increasing number of foreigners join the state health insurance system here, costs for their coverage have more than doubled over the past five years, according to data revealed Friday.
Data from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) and the Justice Ministry show that healthcare costs for insured expatriates in 2016 were 553 billion won ($487 million), up 109 percent from 2012.
While they paid 426 billion won in insurance, the government covered more than 120 billion won for the total costs ― the government’s share was only 14 billion won in 2012.
Their cost-benefit ratio is better than Koreans, who paid 47.4 trillion won for their medical costs of 48.3 trillion won.
According to the NHIS and the ministry, the number of foreign residents surged to 2 million in 2016 from 1.16 million in 2008.
Meanwhile, the number of foreigners as well as Koreans living abroad who are covered by the insurance jumped to 883,000 from 379,000. Today they account for 1.7 percent of all 50.76 million subscribers.
About 870,000 insured foreigners received treatment at local hospitals last year.
In 2005, foreign residents were allowed to receive national insurance benefits, but some people, including Koreans living overseas, started to abuse the system; many came to Korea only to receive medical services almost for free.
So the Ministry of Health and Welfare strengthened health insurance coverage rules in 2014 so that people must pay insurance fees for at least three months in order to receive benefits.
But some loopholes remained, as people who came here for work, study or marriage were still able to receive benefits immediately. As a result, many foreign patients entered Korea for healthcare services pretending to work here, which led the ministry to remove “work” as one of the exceptions the following year.
In the short run, there is little concern about the NHIS finances, which has about 21 trillion won in its pocket. But many became worried after President Moon Jae-in announced to expand the state health insurance coverage to almost all diseases except cosmetic surgery by 2022.
It is expected to cost about 30.6 trillion-won over the next five years.
To finance this, President Moon said he will make the NHIS cover 10 trillion won and raise the state health insurance rate by up to 3.2 percent every year.