Chinese residents in South Korea targeted in health insurance clash between presidential candidates
- Opposition party’s Yoon Suk-yeol says foreigners and dependents ‘put spoons on meal tables’ prepared for Koreans through their hard work
- DPK candidate Lee Jae-myung urges Yoon end ‘politics that encourage hatred of foreigners’, says nation benefits from their insurance payments
State health insurance coverage for foreigners living in South Korea has become the latest point of contention between the presidential candidates of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK).
The stand-off started off with PPP candidate Yoon Suk-yeol saying on Facebook on Sunday that he would apply more stringent standards to screen foreigners living in Korea who are benefiting from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) coverage.
Yoon, who was leading major public opinion polls as of early this month, said he will raise the bar for foreigners so NHIS coverage will be more limited and 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 specifically targeted Chinese residents, saying, “Eight out of 10 people who were covered the most by the NHIS (in 2021) were Chinese, with six of them being their dependents.”
“Foreigners wishing to apply for NHIS coverage are required to live in Korea for at least six months, but their dependents aren’t subject to such requirements,” wrote Yoon. “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.”
DPK presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung countered Yoon’s pledge on Wednesday. On Facebook, Lee told Yoon to stop his “politics that encourages hatred of foreigners,” disagreeing with his argument that foreign nationals are “putting their spoons on tables prepared for Koreans”.
“The fact is that the country has profited more than 500 billion won (US$415 million) from foreign national residents’ insurance payments,” Lee said. “The ones who are actually benefiting from the service (those whose reimbursed amounts surpass their insurance payments) are Korean citizens.”
Lee also described Yoon’s campaign as an “ultraconservative populist pledge that’s hazardous to the country” and compared it to “the words of the Nazis”.