The Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 16th announced its 2026 work plan under the vision of "a Korea where all people are happy," and presented four major goals: strengthening the state's responsibility for care; building a basic safety net; strengthening regional, essential and public health care; and innovating health and welfare to prepare for the future.
First, to enable older adults and people with disabilities to live in the community rather than in institutions, integrated care services linking medical care, long-term care and caregiving will be fully implemented starting in March next year. Home medical centers in charge of house-call services will expand from 192 this year to 250 next year, and integrated home-care agencies providing home care and nursing will grow from 203 to 350 over the same period. The number of recipients of customized care services for older adults will also increase from 550,000 to 576,000.
New services with high on-site demand, such as intensive management for discharged patients and public health center-led frailty prevention and management, will also be introduced. To fill gaps in national common services, the government will provide national funding for the development of tailored care services by city, county and district, and plans to expand home medical infrastructure in medically underserved areas by having public medical institutions and hospital-level institutions participate. The ministry will announce a roadmap for integrated care in February next year and provide phased support to help the delivery system settle in the field.
Child and family support policies will also be extensively revised. The child allowance, currently paid to children under 8, will have its eligibility age raised by one year annually and will be expanded to children under 13 by 2030. Children living outside the Seoul metropolitan area and in depopulated regions will receive an additional 5,000 won to 20,000 won per month, and children in depopulated regions will receive an extra 10,000 won per month in local gift certificates.
Support for pregnancy and childbirth will also be strengthened. The number of people eligible for support for essential fertility testing costs will be expanded from 201,000 to 359,000, and along with the expansion of public postnatal care centers, the cap on medical expense support for preterm and low birthweight infants will be raised to up to 20 million won. To fill gaps in pediatric care at night and on holidays, the number of moonlight children's hospitals will be increased to 120.
The public responsibility for care for people with developmental disabilities and children with disabilities will also be strengthened. The number of users of daytime and after-school activity services will be expanded to around 26,500, and the professional allowance paid to caregivers for people with the most severe developmental disabilities will be raised from 150,000 won to 200,000 won per month. Disability child support centers will be established in 17 cities and provinces, and the scope of developmental rehabilitation services will be expanded. In addition, with nationwide implementation targeted for March 2027, the pilot project to support independent living for people with disabilities in the community will be expanded, and both the number of recipients and the unit price for activity support services will be increased.
To protect low-income households, the standard median income will be raised to the maximum level, and a four-person household will receive up to 2,078,000 won per month in livelihood benefits. In the medical aid system, the family support obligation will be abolished for the first time in 26 years, and the family obligation criteria will be gradually eased. In addition, to secure income in old age, the old age pension reduction system will be improved, and the basic pension reduction for couples will be gradually reduced. A record 1,152,000 senior jobs will be supplied.
A regionally complete essential health care system centered on national university hospitals will be established so that people can receive sufficient essential medical services anywhere in their region. The jurisdiction over national university hospitals will be gradually transferred from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and national university hospitals will be fostered as regional base responsible hospitals through package support for personnel, research and infrastructure.
To respond to the surge in demand for caregiving due to super-aging, policies to reduce the burden of caregiving costs centered on long-term care hospitals will also be promoted. Targeting long-term care hospitals with strong medical capacity, the plan is to lower the out-of-pocket rate for caregiving costs from the current 100% to around 30%, to be implemented in stages starting in 2027. The aim is to alleviate the financial burden on older patients and their families by improving a structure in which caregiving costs were effectively entirely out-of-pocket.
Measures to ease the medical cost burden directly tied to people's livelihoods will proceed in parallel. Seventy diseases will be added to those eligible for the special calculation exception with reduced out-of-pocket rates, lowering the burden on patients with rare and severe diseases such as congenital functional short bowel syndrome. Before the special calculation exception applies, inpatients and outpatients faced out-of-pocket rates of 20% and 30%–60%, respectively; after application, both inpatient and outpatient rates will drop to 10%. By streamlining the appropriateness evaluation and negotiation procedures for benefits, the time to list rare disease treatments and similar items on the National Health Insurance will be drastically shortened from up to 240 days to 100 days.
Suicide prevention and response systems will be further strengthened. During counseling at support institutions for vulnerable groups, such as employment and microfinance services, high-risk individuals with mental and psychological issues will be identified and connected to suicide prevention centers, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology will be used to monitor suicide-inducing information around the clock. In the program that supports treatment costs for suicide attempters and bereaved families, income requirements will be completely abolished, and suicide prevention policies based on scientific evidence will be strengthened, including expanding psychological autopsies for adolescents.
On-site support to close welfare blind spots will also be expanded. Without separate applications or income verification, food and daily necessities will be provided, and the "Just Give Corner," which offers everything from identifying households in crisis to counseling and service linkage, will be expanded nationwide. After pilot operations through this year, the main project will be promoted at 150 locations next year, and increased to 250 by 2027 for nationwide expansion. The criteria for obtaining crisis information, such as data on payment arrears, will be refined, and a dedicated system to identify people at risk of dying alone will begin operation in February next year.
In the medical field, building a regionally complete essential health care system centered on national university hospitals was presented as a key task. The government plans to strengthen the functions and responsibilities of national university hospitals through package support bundling personnel, infrastructure and research and development (R&D).
The number of full-time faculty and clinical professors will be expanded step by step through 2030, while increasing resident allocations and improving treatment and creating a stable environment for education and research. In research, 50 billion won will be invested by 2027 to support advanced research equipment and research funding, and build research networks focused on major diseases such as cancer and cardio-cerebrovascular diseases. In infrastructure, 81.2 billion won will be invested next year alone to upgrade facilities and equipment, expand operating rooms, introduce AI clinical systems and promote the relocation and new construction of aging national university hospitals.
The medical delivery system will also be overhauled. In primary care, a Korea-style family doctor model will be established through a pilot project to innovate community primary care and by strengthening the functions of health subcenters in medically underserved areas. In secondary care, the comprehensive treatment capacity of general hospitals and local medical centers will be strengthened to build a system to provide 24-hour essential care for moderate-severity diseases by 2028. In tertiary care, structural transitions at 47 advanced general hospitals will be completed by 2027, focusing on severe diseases.
Regarding the supply and demand of medical personnel, medical school enrollments will be rationally adjusted based on projection results, and the regional essential physician system will be expanded to six cities and provinces next year to secure staff in regional, essential and public sectors. The government will also push for the introduction of a regional physician system and the establishment of a public medical school to select and support a certain percentage of incoming medical students, and set up a system requiring mandatory service in specific regions after graduation.
Finance and compensation systems will also be revised. The relative value scale, which underpins National Health Insurance fees, will be adjusted on an ongoing basis to lower fees in overcompensated areas and use the savings to strengthen compensation for undercompensated essential services. Public policy fees, such as regional fees that add extra compensation for services provided in medically underserved areas, will also be expanded. In 2027, a special account for regional essential health care worth about 1 trillion won will be created to establish a stable foundation for state fiscal investment, and support for liability insurance premiums for essential medical personnel will be expanded.
The emergency medical system will likewise be bolstered across the board. Staffing at regional emergency medical situation rooms, which oversee the transport and transfers of severe and emergency patients, will be increased from 120 to 150, and helicopters will be added in stages in four regions that lack doctor helicopters. The designation criteria for emergency medical institutions will be revamped from focusing on facilities and equipment to evaluating final treatment capacity for severe diseases, and the number of regional emergency medical centers will be expanded to around 60.
Fostering the biohealth industry is also a pillar of the work plan. The government will invest 1.12 trillion won next year in areas capable of producing results within five years, such as AI drug development, and aims to elevate the bio and pharmaceutical industries into the global top five through the creation of a fund specialized in phase 3 clinical trials and drug price support. From next year through 2032, 940.8 billion won will be invested in developing and localizing advanced medical devices. To strengthen the global competitiveness of the cosmetics industry, export infrastructure will be expanded, and by institutionalizing non-face-to-face treatment for foreign patients, the government will also seek to attract 2 million foreign patients by 2030.
Along with this, pension reform; reorganization of the control tower for population policy; AI-based innovation in health care, welfare and caregiving; the legalization of digital healthcare; and the automation of welfare administration were also presented as mid- to long-term tasks.