Health Insurance Finance Will Be Merged from Tomorrow

The ruling and the opposition parties held floor leaders` meeting on 29th to iron out the different view on the delay period of the merger of health insurance finances, but failed to reach an agreement.

As a result, the health insurance finance, which has been divided into corporate insurance and regional insurance, will be merged from January 1st under current law.

In the floor leaders` meeting, New Millennium Democratic Party adhered to the `delay of 1 year at most`, while Grand National Party the `delay of 2 years`. The ruling and the opposition parties thought it impossible to reach an agreement within this year and decided to hold the floor leaders` meeting again on January 4th.

Lee Sang-Soo floor leader of MDP said, "We shared the same opinion that there would not be serious administrational confusions even if the health insurance finance merger will be delayed by the agreement of the ruling and opposition parties after the merger is once legally carried out from January 1st 2002. So we are planning to decide whether and how long we delay the merger during the special session until January 12th 2002."

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com