Health Insurance Merger Deferred for One and Half Years

The ruling and opposition parties agreed through the floor leaders meeting yesterday to delay the controversial Health Insurance merger for one and half years.

Consequently, the Health Insurance merger, which was originally scheduled to be implemented this year, will be deferred until July 2003 after the launch of the next government.

Rep. Lee Jae-Oh, the floor leader of the Grand National Party which had insisted on the 2 year delay of the Health Insurance merger, accepted the proposal of Rep. Lee Sang-Soo, the floor leader of the New Millennium Democratic Party, for `one and half year delay`.

The two floor leaders agreed to pass the revised Health Insurance law and the bill for the Health Insurance Finance Special law for tobacco taxation to raise funds for Health Insurance at the plenary session of the National Assembly on Jan 8th.

Since the majority of the Health and Welfare Committee members of the National Assembly insist on 150 won per pack, while the government demanded 180 won per pack of tobacco tax, the exact amount for the tobacco tax will be decided at the general meeting of the Health and Welfare Committee on the 7th.

The two parties also agreed on the necessity for a parliamentary inspection of the administration concerning the insolvent operation of public funds and decided to set up a detail timetable for the establishment of the special committee for the parliamentary inspection later on.

The ruling and opposition parties also agreed to re-establish the political reformation special committee, whose operation period was over by the end of December last year and to complete the revision of the election laws related to the local government election by early February. In addition, the political reformation special committee will hold hearings to collect public opinion on the inclusion of the Prosecutor General and the Director General of the National Intelligence Service as subjects in the Congress` personnel hearing.

NMDP floor leader Lee explained after the meeting that "the financial security of the Health Insurance is no less important than the Health Insurance merger. NMDP could not help but compromise with the GNP because a 50 billion won monthly deficit is expected when the tobacco taxation is delayed."

Meanwhile, GNP floor leader Lee stated that "The decision is significant in that the Health Insurance merger that cannot be resolved in this government until it turned over to the next government."

Jeong-Hun KimJeong-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com