The unreasonable foreign residents’ health insurance premium charge system needs to be improved!

Gyeonggi-do Human Rights Support Center for Foreigners (Director, Oh Kyung-seok) held the 2nd Diversity Communication Coordination Committee (Chairperson Lee Jeong-ho) on June 9 and reconciled six cases of conflict between Koreans and foreign nationals caused by cultural differences and lack of communication. Particularly, in two cases that occurred due to the irrationality of the health insurance premium charge system, it urged the relevant institutions to improve the system.

The problem of switching local health insurance applicants

A Filipino immigrant worker who works for a manufacturing company in Siheung City left his job in October of last year. Since 2019, foreign nationals have also been subject to mandatory health insurance subscription, so A automatically converted to local health insurance applicant as soon as he/she left the company.

The problem is that local health insurance premiums are higher than those of employers, so it is not easy for unemployed immigrant workers to continue to pay.

As a result, cases in which a large number of immigrant workers, including A, are delinquent in paying their health insurance premiums continue to occur. If a foreigner fails to pay health insurance premiums, the extension of his/her status of stay is also restricted and there is a risk of losing his/her status of stay.

Of course, the government and the National Health Insurance Corporation also recognize this problem and are implementing a system for voluntary continuous enrollment for job applicants so that job applicants can maintain their job status for a certain period of time even after they leave the company.

This system is a system in which employees are required to pay only 50% of their health insurance premiums while maintaining their employment status for three years even if they leave the company.

However, it is difficult to notify foreign workers because most of the mail goes to the dormitory of the company they quit.

How many would the foreign workers quickly decide where to live and even change their address after leaving the company?

Accordingly, the members attending the 2nd Diversity Communication Coordination Committee stated that it should be diversified with health insurance-related notices through text messages, SNS, and Kakao Talk as well as postal notices, and provide relevant information at employment support centers, which are frequently visited by immigrant workers looking for work. They agreed that institutional reform was necessary to achieve this.

Long-term care insurance collection problem

H, a Vietnamese national, and S, a Nepali national, are immigrant workers working at a manufacturing company in Ansan. They always include long-term care premiums for the elderly in their monthly health insurance premiums, which they recently found to be insurable only when they are over 65.

Foreign workers entering Korea under the Employment Permit System (E-9) have a maximum stay of 9 years and 8 months, so foreign workers, mostly in their 20s and 30s, cannot benefit from this insurance from the beginning.

Pastor Choi Kyung-sik (Global Mission Center), a witness who attended the Diversity Communication Coordination Committee on behalf of the two, said, “They have no choice but to leave the country before turning 65, but workers ask me why they have to pay insurance every month, and I have nothing to say. In the case of foreign workers, they should be excluded from the collection of long-term care insurance premiums for the elderly and should be voluntarily subscribed only if they wish.”

Of course, if a foreign worker applies for exclusion from long-term care insurance through the company, the imposition stops immediately, but few companies know about it, and foreign workers have no way of knowing.

Even if they know it somehow and apply for exclusion, they will not be reimbursed for the insurance premium they paid before.

The members of the Diversity Communication Coordination Committee agreed on the need to improve the system, saying, “If it is difficult to change to voluntary membership, it should be able to receive a refund when they leave the country before the age of 65.”

Kim Dae-kwon, team leader of the Gyeonggi-do Center for Foreigners' Human Rights, said, "Many of the conflicts that occur between Koreans and foreign residents are caused by a lack of understanding of cultural differences and lack of communication. In the future, we will try to mediate conflicts between Koreans and foreign residents and strengthen communication through the Diversity Communication Coordination Committee.” 

Reporter Hasung Song