South Korea cuts 93 billion won in medical internship support budget due to opposition from opposition party

On the 14th, the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee voted to cut the budget for the "Resident Doctor Support Project" by 93.112 billion won. The South Korean government had initially planned to cut the budget by 370.223 billion won.
However, the Democratic Party and other opposition parties opposed the budget. On the other hand, the Democratic Party called it the "Kim Gun-Hee budget" and called for cuts to the "Support for Investment in the People's Hearts" program.
The budget cut for the "business" program was limited to 14%. The Welfare Committee's Budget and Accounts Review Subcommittee held a general meeting in the morning and voted on the next fiscal year's budget proposal for the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The bill was passed at a general meeting of the Welfare Committee in the afternoon. According to the results of the subcommittee's review, the training environment innovation support project for resident doctors was budgeted at 235.371 billion won, an increase of 75.672 billion won from the original plan.
The training allowance payment program for medical residents was cut by 17.44 billion won from 58.9 billion won, ultimately amounting to 41.46 billion won. The Welfare Committee stated the reasons for the revision as follows:
"Due to the prolonged conflict over medical affairs, it is unclear whether residents will be able to return to work. Since the normal start of training is in March, the number of months for which supervising specialists receive allowances has been reduced from 12 months to 10 months, and residents will be
The reduction was made on the assumption that the return rate would be 80%. A Welfare Committee official said that the reduction reflected the opposition party's opinion that national support programs for medical residents are unnecessary.
The ruling and opposition parties are at odds over the budget for medical residents in the Budget and Accounts Subcommittee of the Democratic Party, which is a member of the Welfare Committee.
"Does the government really need to provide additional support? Does the government have any spare money?" said Rep. Kim Sun-min of the opposition Fatherland Reform Party. "The ruling and opposition parties' medical affairs council is up and running and recently held a 'Christmas' meeting.
The budget was hastily prepared to cover the results of the consultation committee's "Hot Topic" program, and the cost of managing and operating the specialist qualification exam was 280 million won.
The budget for mental health support projects, a major target of the Democratic Party, was increased to 1.9 billion won from the previous year. This is a measure to compensate for the decline in income from exam fees due to the decline in the number of people taking specialist exams.
The project will be funded with a total budget of 789.2 billion won through 2027. The budget proposal for next year is set at 50.83 billion won, an increase of 3.581 billion won from this year.
The Welfare Committee cut only 7.475 billion won out of this total. This was adjusted based on the actual number of consultations received by people who received psychological counseling, and the program will remain at the same level as this year.
The Democratic Party had previously said in written questions that the budget for the "People's Mental Investment Project," which includes suicide prevention, an area Yoon's first lady was interested in, had been compiled carelessly.
"Even though the review of the project's suitability is due to be completed by the end of this year, 50.83 billion won has been allocated, so
The funding source needs to be reduced in full to reflect the budget for the next-generation emergency medical information system. Reps. Kang Seong-woo and Nam In-soon are of the opinion that the budget should be reduced by more than 50%.
The ruling People's Power Party pointed out that excessive budget cuts by the opposition parties, which hold a majority of seats, led to a reduction in the budget for medical residents. A party member of the Welfare Committee said, "(The Democratic Party)
"There is nowhere to cut the mental investment support program for the people, which has essentially been dubbed the 'Kim GunHee Budget,' so we cut the support budget for medical residents," he said.