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All foreigners must enroll in health insurance after six-month stay
By Lee Suh-yoon
Stricter terms will be applied to foreign residents to prevent possible abuse of the national health insurance system, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced, Sunday.
According to the changes, effective from July, all foreigners who have continuously resided in the country for at least six months must subscribe to the state healthcare program through a non-employer-sponsored plan and pay monthly premiums.
Previously, mandatory registration was only applied to salaried workers, leading to cases where foreigners who needed high-cost medical procedures signed up for the program because those covered by the insurance get around 62 percent of essential medical costs reimbursed.
Such cases of opportunism ― mostly found in temporary visitors rather than settled residents ― led the ministry to raise the minimum period of residency to make one eligible for the state insurance from three months to six months last December.
Those who leave Korea for 30 continuous days are dropped from the system but they can re-register without waiting another six months if they pay the premium for the months they were gone. This renewal-upon-return option, however, is not available to the original subscribers who stay abroad for over six months. After a six-month period, foreign residents ― with exceptions given to marriage migrants and exchange students ― must wait another six months to be eligible for the insurance coverage again.
The monthly premium for foreign subscribers has also become higher than before, about the average of all Koreans, while it used to be the average of Koreans registered with the non-employer-sponsored plan only. This year's figure was set around 103,000 won ($90).
Starting May, foreign residents who are late on their insurance payments will be subject to visa-related penalties, the ministry added.
The average foreigners who had the non-employer-sponsored plan paid just 1.37 million won in insurance payments over five years and enjoyed medical benefits worth 4.72 million won, according to National Health Insurance Service data from 2013 to 2017.
In the case of foreigners enrolled in the insurance program via their employers ― about 70 percent of the total number of foreigners registered in the system ― the average subscriber paid 5.37 million won during the same period and received benefits worth 2.2 million won.
