Abstract
Moon Jae-in Government announced the Government's 5-Year Plan on July 19, 2017, President Moon directly announced the Government's Plan for Benefit Expansion in National Health Insurance on August 7, 2017. The main contents of the announced expansion include benefit coverage for all medically necessary services with control over non-covered service occurrence, a decrease in the cost-sharing upper limit, and monetary support for catastrophic medical costs. Although past governments have been continuously striving for benefit expansion in the last 15 years, this plan has its breakthrough aspect in that all medical services will be covered by the National Health Insurance. In alignment, there are important tasks to solve: attaining a proper fee schedule, reforming the healthcare delivery system, and improving healthcare quality. This plan is a symptom oriented action in that it is limited in reducing patients' out-of-pocket money, unlike the systematic approach of the National Health Insurance. The sustainability of the National Health Insurance is being threatened due to South Korea's low birth rate, rapidly aging society, and low economic growth, in addition to the unification issue of the Korean Peninsula, medical utilization of the elderly, management of non-communicable diseases, and so on. Therefore, the Government needs to plan the National Health Insurance system reformation including actions addressed toward medical consumers.
