Medical Association: "Medical Law Should Be Excluded from Service Industry Development Act"

Statement Made at the National Assembly Public Hearing on the 25th

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] The Korean Medical Association has expressed its position that the medical sector should be excluded from the Basic Act on Service Industry Development, which is currently being discussed in the National Assembly.

Song Myung-je, Director of External Cooperation at the Korean Medical Association, stated in the materials for the public hearing on the bill held at the National Assembly on the 25th, "We oppose the enactment of the Basic Act on Service Industry Development, which allows non-medical professionals to establish medical institutions along with telemedicine, permits health management services, and thereby threatens the health of the public and the lives of patients, potentially undermining the national health care system."

He also emphasized that when enacting the Basic Act on Service Industry Development, the principle of precedence of individual laws such as the Medical Service Act must be explicitly stated. Director Song said, "It should be specified that the provisions of the Medical Service Act take precedence over the Basic Act on Service Industry Development, and that individual laws related to public health and health care services, such as the Medical Service Act, National Health Insurance Act, Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, and Health Promotion Act, cannot be excluded."

Song Jae-chan, Executive Vice President of the Korean Hospital Association, also said, "We understand that there is significant public concern regarding the introduction of for-profit hospitals outside the scope of the National Health Insurance system, and the hospital sector also takes a very cautious stance on this. However, if all health care laws are excluded from the enacted law, the inconvenience may fall on medical users and the public. Furthermore, it seems necessary to preemptively prevent difficulties in linking future systems unrelated to public concerns with these laws and the service development system."

He added that, as proposed by Rep. Chu Kyung-ho of the People Power Party, it would be preferable to selectively exclude only provisions with significant public concern, such as the prohibition of refusal of medical treatment and types of nursing institutions.

As an alternative, he suggested establishing a process in the enacted bill whereby, when the committee reviews and formulates the service industry development plan, if the matter relates to health care?such as Article 15 of the Medical Service Act (prohibition of refusal of medical treatment), Article 5 (scope of application), Article 41 (nursing benefits), and Article 42 (nursing institutions) of the National Health Insurance Act?opinions from relevant National Assembly committees or ministries and social discussions would be collected.

This bill, which has been stalled for 10 years due to controversy over the commercialization of medical services, is now being actively promoted by the Democratic Party of Korea as part of regulatory innovation. The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated in a legislative direction report submitted to the National Assembly in September last year, "Since both ruling and opposition parties agree on the enactment of the law, we proposed adopting a negative regulation approach and discussing the applicability to detailed sectors separately during the policy formulation stage." This is interpreted as an intention to first prepare the bill in a broad framework and then decide whether to include the medical sector, as the controversy over medical commercialization has hindered overall service development. The medical community has opposed it citing potential harm to so-called 'dongnae hospitals' (local clinics) and deterioration in medical quality.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.