A few weeks ago, a media report hinted at the possibility of a new senior presidential secretary for health and welfare affairs during the cabinet reshuffle. The report also indicated that the current vice minister of health and welfare might assume this position.

Puzzled by the lack of concrete follow-up measures after President Yoon Suk Yeol's call to increase medical school students, the mention of a new health-welfare chief secretary office led me to think, "Now, they're going to address healthcare issues seriously."

With the senior secretary for civil and social affairs now overseeing welfare issues, I believed it was time for a dedicated office at the presidential level to handle healthcare matters. However, this didn't materialize as I had hoped.

Korea’s healthcare system, based on health insurance, is seriously ill. It's no secret that as things stand now, health insurance will run out of money before 2030

Besides, the allegedly serious problems of avoiding essential medical care specialties and the collapse of regional healthcare are not mild illnesses that can be solved by simply increasing the number of doctors but severe cases that can only be solved by completely resetting our healthcare system.

Now is the last opportunity to repair Korea’s healthcare on the brink. From this perspective, a thorough examination of the nation’s healthcare system at the governmental level is imperative.

Unfortunately, the incumbent administration seems to have overlooked this, failing to address policy problems for sustainable healthcare.

Even working out a solid plan led by the health and welfare minister may not be satisfactory. However, the current minister and his close aides are not a group of healthcare experts and have limitations. So, I think it is necessary to introduce a senior secretary for healthcare affairs in the presidential office and look at it properly, even for a while.

Our medical culture, marked by a collapsed care delivery system and rampant overtreatment driven by unreimbursed care, cannot continue as it is. Why can’t the policymakers see the reality where the number of practicing doctors is lower than the OECD average, but the number of beds is three times higher, and the utilization of healthcare institutions is several times higher?

Why don't they see health insurance coverage rates stuck in the 1960s even after we forcefully drag a large portion of unreimbursed care into the reimbursable range every year?

The laissez-faire system, where you can go to a primary healthcare provider anywhere in the country and go straight to a large hospital in Seoul without any conditions, stems from the collapse of the healthcare delivery system, which, in turn, creates excessive competition for scale among healthcare institutions and the normalization of overtreatment.

I believe university hospitals will soon be in a very difficult financial situation. Labor costs will skyrocket, and the government cannot stand idly by and watch the vast structure of overtreatment. The big hospitals may go under if, at some point, the government says, “Okay, let's go by the rules.”

If Korea just increases the number of doctors without approaching these structural problems fundamentally, the rare, aggressive policy could end up disastrous. In other words, won’t there be an explosion of healthcare costs in proportion to the increase in physicians? It is very regrettable that the presidential office considered introducing the healthcare chief’s office but dropped it.

Improving the healthcare system alone would be a huge task for this government. It's a shame that the civil and social affairs office would handle healthcare issues as a side menu. So, I’m saying, “Where have you gone, senior secretary for healthcare affairs?”