Top Presidential Candidate Accuses Foreigners of Stealing From Korea's Medical System
In a highly condemned campaign move, conservative presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol accused foreigners of stealing from Korea's medical system. Showing a pattern of unresearched rhetoric, he tried to play to his racist and xenophobic political base. However, Korean people were quick to criticize Yoon's outlandish remarks with the facts.
Immigrants to South Korea have been keeping the medical system afloat for years by paying more into the system than they receive (half a billion dollars). Insurance premiums are higher for foreigners and they pay on time more than native Koreans. If it weren't for foreigners contributing to Korea's national health care system, it would be going bankrupt.
Yoon's own family has been milking the health care system themselves. He's used his prosecutorial connections to prevent his mother-in-law for being punished for billing Korea's medical insurance system for in-patient care illegally when she converted her seedy motel into a senior living care facility without a medical license. Moreover, his own wife has been underpaying insurance premiums to the tune of only $58 a month when she has amassed millions of assets on paper. She should be paying hundreds of dollars a month if not in the thousands since Korea's national health care insurance premiums are calculated based on income and assets.
However, the greatest danger to Yoon's careless political rhetoric is discrimination in health care services to foreigners, which may create a life and death situation. I've experienced discrimination of this nature first hand. And for one Thai ambassador's wife, the diplomatic corps argued that her passing at the hands of medical malpractice in Korea was caused by an environment of such hostility.
