Foreign residents in Korea paid nearly 1.58 trillion won ($1.11 billion) in health insurance premiums, and the number of foreigners caught illegally receiving insurance money decreased significantly last year.
Based on the analysis of data at the National Health Insurance Service, Rep. Koh Young-in of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said Thursday that the NHIS collected 1,579.3 billion won from foreign residents -- 1.11 trillion won from foreign subscribers working for companies and 464.8 billion won from individually insured foreigners – last year.
Among foreigners who paid health insurance premiums, about 480,000 were company employees with 190,000 dependents, and 560,000 were personally insured. The size of dependents of foreign workplace subscribers was one-third of that of Korean corporate subscribers.
The number of foreign health insurance subscribers continued to increase from 889,891 in 2017 to 946,756 in 2018, 1,212,475 in 2019, 1,182,341 in 2020, and 1,237,278 in 2021.
The number of corporate subscribers and their dependents increased relatively little compared to district subscribers, who more than doubled in number. The number of locally insured foreign subscribers jumped from 264,000 in 2017 to 564,765 in 2021. In contrast, workplace subscribers increased from 443,760 in 2017 to 480,604 in 2021, and their dependents climbed from 182,131 to 191,909 during the same period.
Notably, it was confirmed that the number of illegal receipts of insurance money, which caused controversy over “medical shopping,” has also dropped significantly.
The cases of illegal receipts of health insurance money by foreigners declined from 185 in 2018 to 125 in 2019, 80 in 2020, and 50 in 2021. The determined amount also fell from 199 million won in 2018 to 62 million won in 2021 and to 46 million won in August 2022.
“Foreigners' financial contribution to health insurance premiums is significant,” Rep. Koh said. “The impression of foreigners’ medical shopping should not be misled to represent the whole because they are limited to only a few cases.”