Korean Medical Association criticizes government's decision on weekday medical fees for Armed Forces Day as ”forcing sacrifices...shameless tactics” = South Korea

The Korean Medical Association (KMA) has commented that the South Korean government's decision not to punish hospitals and clinics for accepting weekday medical fees on Armed Forces Day, October 1st (a temporary public holiday), has "forced the medical community to make sacrifices."
On the 7th, the Korean Medical Association criticized the move, saying, "The government has made an announcement that essentially forces hospitals and clinics to accept medical fees on Armed Forces Day (a temporary public holiday) as weekday medical fees. It seems that they are being forced to accept the government's decision for political reasons.
"It is an irresponsible and shameless way of doing things to suddenly decide on temporary public holidays and then pass on the resulting costs and burden to medical institutions."
On special public holidays, the 'Saturday, night and holiday surcharge system' is applied, and patients who use medical facilities will receive a 30% surcharge.
In principle, patients must pay up to 50% of medical expenses. Violating this rule is punishable under the Medical Care Act as a profit-making act, but the government is
As such, it has been decided that medical institutions will not be punished if they choose to not collect patient copayments on this Armed Forces Day.
"Even so, they announced that they would not punish those who do not receive the additional fees without consulting with the medical community," he said.
He added, "The government is patronizing the medical community by forcing them to make another sacrifice. When concerns arose about the burden on the public, the government decided to split the costs between medical institutions and employees.
The cost must not be passed on to other parties, but must be covered by national finances."