42 Health
Should You Buy Extra Medical Insurance in Korea?
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
June 2021
COMMUNITY
By William Urbanski
I
f you have ever found yourself in any sort of Korean hospital, clinic, or in particular, a specialized medical practice, you have probably noticed something quite peculiar, namely, that they are almost always stuffed-tothe-gills busy. Koreans are not more prone to sickness and injury than anyone else, and Korea has a high number of hospitals per capita, so I think I speak for all of humanity when I say, “What gives?” KOREAN MEDICAL INSURANCE AT A GLANCE Korea has a very comprehensive and mandatory healthcare plan, so over the last couple of months, I was very surprised to learn about the high percentage of Koreans who purchase and carry supplementary health insurance. The next time you meet your Korean friends, try bringing up the subject and you will almost certainly find that they either have an extra healthcare plan or someone in their immediate family does. I am not going to get into the fine details of the available plans (there are too many to list), but they range from somewhat affordable to quite expensive (to the tune of a few grand a year) and cover the whole gamut of medical conditions up to and including terminal diseases. This sounds all well and good, but considering the medical plan that is in place, it is kind of curious why so many people in Korea feel the need to carry extra insurance. Further digging into this topic reveals a possible answer and an “inconvenient truth”: the Korean private insurance system is rife with fraud and abuse as a great deal of people buy insurance policies with the explicit intention of milking them for everything they are worth. There is even a special term in Korean for fakers who pretend to be sick or injured just so that they can cash in on their policies: “nylon patients” (나이롱 환자). This term is a reference to both the dubious quality of garments made with the material and the even dubious-er claims made by “patients.”
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THE PURPOSE OF INSURANCE Why should anyone buy insurance in the first place? Well, simply put, it is so that if something catastrophic happens, your life, property, or livelihood will be protected. Being insured is like wearing a helmet or fastening your seatbelt in a car: It is something you do with the express hope that you never have to use it. To account for the prevalence of nylon patients, I would like to introduce a metaphor: If someone has a phone plan with 1GB of data, that person will probably be somewhat conservative on how they use it. If a person pays for a “big” data plan that has 10GB, 20GB, or unlimited data per month, he or she will certainly use it more just because it is available, and to not use it will seem like a waste. They may even be bitter about the high price they pay for it. It is the same way with insurance: If someone has a big policy, it is very tempting to use it just because it is there. “PAY TO PLAY” HEALTHCARE My home country, Canada, is well known for having free and universal healthcare. In theory this sounds like an excellent system, and I am not one to dispute that it is. Although Canada’s free healthcare system is the envy of many other nations (cough, cough, USA, cough, cough), it is not without its drawbacks. Namely, wait times can be long, especially for non-urgent conditions, and if you do not have a family doctor as your first point of contact, good luck navigating the complex, bureaucratic system. Instead of debating the merits of a free healthcare system, I think it is important to draw attention to one of the most salient features of Canadian society: the fact that most Canadians do not enjoy visiting hospitals and generally do whatever they can to not visit one. Now let us compare that to Korea, which has excellent healthcare and the marvelous National Health Insurance
2021-05-26 �� 9:30:46 ▲ If you break your ankle, you might still be able to go out for burgers.
