Opposition's election victory raises questions on medical student increase policy changes

Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party secured a landslide victory in Wednesday's parliamentary election. 

As conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol and his ruling party are expected to face an uphill battle in the political scene, many now pay attention to whether there will be any change in the government’s stance to push for a 2,000-seat increase in medical school admissions.  

With nearly all votes counted as of 9 a.m. Thursday, the Democratic Party won 174 seats -- 161 constituency wins and 13 proportional representation seats secured by its satellite party -- out of 300, according to the National Election Commission.

Now, attention is on how the Democratic Party will realize its promise of “reasonably expanding medical school seats," the party's long-standing advocacy for a Nursing Act, and the establishment of public medical schools.

During the general elections campaign, the Democratic Party pledged to increase medical school enrollment quota “reasonably” and place more weight on the state’s role in public and essential healthcare, especially in provincial areas. 

Regarding an expansion of physicians, the main opposition party proposed establishing a rational expansion plan for medical schools and nursing schools considering long-term medical needs, improving the quality of medical education by expanding medical education infrastructure and improving the national medical license examination pass rate, and curbing the indiscriminate expansion of hospital beds.

Rep. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said on his social media on April 4 that “the suffering of the Korean people and patients was growing” due to the medical care disruptions amid the ongoing strike by over 10,000 junior doctors and some senior physicians. 

"This is no longer acceptable. As soon as the general elections are over, we will form a special committee to discuss healthcare reform in the National Assembly in consultation with the ruling party and end the medical gaps and confusion," Lee said.

He also vowed to build a social consensus through a special committee that includes not only the government and the medical community but also citizens, lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties, and patients.

With the Democratic Party’s leader explicitly pointing out the medical school student increase issue, the party will actively work to solve the problem after the general elections, observers noted. 

This call is likely to grow louder after the general elections, as there have been calls from within the ruling party, as well as the Democratic Party, for the government to meet with the medical community and make concessions, rather than sticking to the 2,000 annual increase in medical school seats.

The government's somewhat flexible stance on increasing the number of medical school seats by 2,000 per year before the general election also raises the possibility of changes after the general election.

Vice Minister Park Min-soo of the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at the regular briefing on April 8 that the government will "internally review" the proposal by the president of the Korean Medical Association to increase the number of medical school seats after a one-year moratorium.

After the story was widely reported, the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Health and Welfare said they "have not reviewed and do not plan to review the one-year moratorium on medical school enrollment.

However, given that the remarks were made at an official briefing, they represent a change in the government's stance, which initially emphasized that the enrollment of 2,000 medical students per year would remain unchanged.

In this regard, some government officials said that changes in government policies are inevitable now that the ruling party has lost the parliamentary election.

"If the ruling party had won the general elections, the policies it is currently promoting would be supported, but on the contrary, a defeat could affect the policies," a government official said. "We have to see what will happen."

On the other hand, the opposition’s victory could also empower policies opposed by the medical community, such as mandating medical students in regional areas to work at the region’s hospitals for a certain period, establishing new public medical schools, and legislating the Nursing Act. 

The Nursing Act, which failed to pass the National Assembly due to opposition from doctors, aims to expand nursing manpower, properly deploy them, and improve nurses’ welfare and work conditions. 

In addition, the Democratic Party pledged to apply health insurance to nursing home care costs, expand the primary care system and home visits for older adults, introduce safe telemedicine, establish a public electronic prescription delivery system, strengthen national responsibility for childhood obesity and childhood diabetes, strengthen national support for rare and difficult diseases, and lay the foundation for the nation to become a pharmaceutical powerhouse.

Among them, applying health insurance to nursing home care costs, expanding home visits and home care, introducing telehealth, and boosting the pharma industry are in line with the government's policy direction and are expected to gain momentum after the general elections.