NAMYANGJU — Choi Hyun-duk, mayor of Namyangju in Gyeonggi Province, said on the 8th that "there are limits to covering rapidly growing welfare demand with the limited budgets of a basic-level local government." His remarks were aimed at revising the current structure, under which local governments shoulder the entire cost of long-term care benefits for medical aid recipients.
According to the city, ordinary medical aid is subsidized 80% by the national government, but long-term care benefits must be funded entirely from provincial and municipal budgets. Because a local government's benefit costs rise when a recipient moves into its jurisdiction, the burden accumulates at the basic-level local government.
Namyangju has good access to Seoul and a pleasant natural environment, and as the number of care facilities within the city has grown, medical aid recipients from other regions have continued to move in and enter those facilities.
Namyangju had 143,793 older residents as of the end of July, ranking seventh in Gyeonggi Province. Yet its total local-budget burden for long-term care this year comes to 75.4 billion won, or 8.3% of the province's long-term care budget. Of that, 45.8 billion won covers facility benefits — the largest amount among the province's 31 cities and counties, exceeding even Goyang, Suwon and Yongin, which have larger older populations.
The city has begun lobbying for revisions to the relevant laws. It delivered a letter seeking cooperation to National Assembly members representing the area, and on the 7th Choi met Kwon Chil-seung, chief policymaker of the Democratic Party of Korea, to propose amendments to the Act on Long-Term Care Insurance for the Elderly and its enforcement decree.
The city argues that the cost of long-term care benefits for medical aid recipients should be transferred to the national government, or at minimum restructured so that national funding covers 80% or more, the level applied to ordinary medical aid. It is also asking that joint funding by the national and local governments be written into the law.
The city is also taking steps to manage recipients and care institutions within its jurisdiction. It plans to examine the residency status of medical aid recipients who move in from other regions and to strengthen cooperation with the Namyangju branch of the National Health Insurance Service and associations representing care institutions.
The city will continue to ask Gyeonggi Province to expand provincial funding and to introduce differentiated subsidy rates that account for the fiscal conditions of individual cities and counties.
"Through revisions to the relevant laws, we will do our utmost to secure the soundness of local finances so that better care benefits reach the older residents of Namyangju," Choi said.
