DPK: Yoon’s healthcare reforms to be scrutinized, not scrapped

The Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), whose presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung is the current frontrunner, said it would evaluate the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s healthcare reform policies to “distinguish gems from pebbles.”

While the DPK emphasized that its presidential campaign pledges are realistic and feasible, it also warned that medical students and resigned trainee doctors should “wake up from their illusions” if they vaguely expect conditions to improve after the election.

On Thursday, Cho Won-joon, a senior expert member of the DPK’s policy committee, spoke to reporters covering health policy at the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee, explaining that the party had to be “cautious” about why it released its presidential pledges so late. The DPK unveiled its presidential manifesto on Wednesday, a day before early voting began.

He said the campaign platform is more compact than the first draft, as it contains only “promises that can be kept. "

Cho also heads the main opposition party's presidential pledge task force.

“Any government has two months after taking office to supplement and organize through the presidential transition committee, but (the president who wins this election) has to start working immediately, so we had to discuss this part together at the pledge stage,” Cho said. “The demands of Lee Jae-myung's campaign team were promises that could be kept with a focus on feasibility.”

The DPK emphasized “feasibility” by presenting healthcare reform and solving the healthcare crisis as policy priorities. It plans to promote “real” healthcare reform with the people, not unilateral reform, and to ensure social implementation by establishing the “People-Centered Healthcare Reform Public Discussion Committee” to strengthen the cooperation system of healthcare professionals.

Cho said it was shocking to see the ruling People Power Party (PPP) pledge to “reexamine Yoon’s healthcare reform from the ground up.”

“That means that the party that promoted healthcare reform will deny and overturn 100 percent of its policy,” Cho said. “The government will continue even if the regime changes, so it is not a promise that should be made lightly, as it is a matter that invites wasteful debates and denies the continuity of the administration.”

He pointed out that the promise to restart from ground zero on healthcare reform, which is not possible, is affecting the return of medical students and trainee doctors and that if there is an expectation that the students and junior doctors will return under better conditions under the new government, they should “wake up from their illusions.”

“The government's additional recruitment of trainee doctors is also facing a lot of backlash as it is against equity, and more than that, it is likely to be seen as a special case that the public cannot agree with,” Cho said. “No matter which political force is in power, such a decision cannot be made realistically.”

Instead of reversing the policies implemented by the Yoon administration as part of the healthcare reform, including the pilot project to restructure tertiary general hospitals, Cho said he would scrutinize them.

“I don't look at them through the colored glasses of the previous government,” Cho said. “However, there are quite a few pilot projects that should have had a legal basis but were delegated to subordinate laws or presidential decrees because they didn't have the confidence to pass the National Assembly, so they were promoted without principle.”

He cited the non-face-to-face medical care pilot project and said, “We must ask why it was decided that way.”

“If the pilot project has achieved the expected results in line to promote the pilot project, it needs to be reevaluated, and if the pilot project has not worked, we must analyze the reasons why, but we must look at the decision-making structure and so on,” Cho said. “The results can be organized into natural selection and focus.”

The DPK has emphasized a decision-making structure through social consensus. It plans to discuss healthcare reform in the People-Centered Healthcare Reform Public Discussion Committee and the issue of medical school capacity in the Medical Manpower Supply and Demand Committee.

“It's not just the government and providers. The needs of the people, including patients as consumers, should also be incorporated and organized into healthcare policies,” Cho said. “The most powerful reform agenda can be the one that achieves an amicable consensus. The medical community needs to resonate with and persuade the public.”

“The Medical Workforce Committee is an expert panel. Its expertise must be assured. The idea behind creating the committee is that the decision-making process was not professional and scientific,” he said. “Therefore, the medical community should not think that they can send someone who will get their way just because they have a majority of the quota (in the commission's composition).”