The Ministry of Health and Welfare will begin work in the second half to upgrade the overall welfare and medical systems. The core is to move away from the existing approach of responding after a crisis by taking applications, and to refine a system that detects warning signs in advance and intervenes preemptively.
The plan is to raise the already ongoing efforts to identify blind spots, provide automatic support, and connect care into an even denser structure. The policy framework, which has been operated separately as welfare, medical care, and caregiving, will also be revamped to strengthen the linkage structure based on the life cycle.
Minister Jung Eun-kyeong of the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a press briefing marking the first anniversary of the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration on the 11th, "We will move away from welfare focused on vulnerable groups and advance toward 'welfare for all,' that is, a basic society." Jung said, "Reflecting environmental changes such as the AI transition, demographic shifts, and aging, we will convert the overall social welfare and health care policies into future-responsive ones."
◇ Overhauling the social safety net… "From post-crisis response to preemptive intervention"
The first thing the government will tackle is how the social safety net operates. The collection cycle for 47 types of crisis information, including power or water shutoffs, will be shortened from up to 60 days to 30 days, and a system to detect signs of crisis by combining changes in living data such as electricity usage will be built within the year. This shifts from arrears-centered administration to risk detection based on living patterns. The existing concept of "lonely death" will be expanded to "social isolation," and a pan-government comprehensive plan will be prepared through a complete overhaul of the relevant law.
The welfare benefit system will also shift from "application-based" to automatic payment. Universal benefits such as child allowance, parent benefit, and first meeting voucher will be paid without separate applications, and legal revisions will be pursued to strengthen the effectiveness of civil servants' ex officio applications. The "Just Give" counters that immediately connect crisis households on site will be expanded to about 300 nationwide.
The overhaul of the crisis response system will extend to suicide prevention. The government is redefining the problem of suicide as a complex crisis rather than a single cause. To address situations where debt, poverty, unemployment, and family problems are intertwined within one framework, the functions of 16 cooperating agencies and four linked agencies will be expanded and reorganized, and a new system linkage between the Employment Welfare Plus Center and youth counseling centers will be established. Cooperation with the Financial Supervisory Service will be added starting in 2027. The 109 suicide prevention call center will increase counseling staff from 103 to 200, and an AI-based counseling support system will be introduced.
◇ "As one life flow"… advancing the care system
The care system will be reorganized to link the entire life cycle into a single flow. At the child stage, a full survey of about 54,000 children under age 6 who have not used medical services will be conducted by September. For crisis households, a joint case management system will be applied, with the child protection team, the Dream Start program, and the hope welfare team participating together.
In the youth sector, youth future centers will be expanded to 17 cities and provinces nationwide, and youths caring for family members will receive 2 million won in self-care expenses. Isolated or withdrawn youths will receive step-by-step recovery support depending on their condition.
Care for people with disabilities will shift to a community-based model. A home-visit rehabilitation service will be introduced, and pancreatic disability will be added to the disability registration types, expanding from 15 to 16. Installation of CCTV will be mandated in residential facilities, and the system to support independent living for people with disabilities will be expanded in stages ahead of its transition to a main program.
Elderly care will be strengthened in a form integrated with medical care. Hub-based home medical centers will be introduced, and senior jobs will be linked with integrated care such as health management and meal support. For dementia, early intervention will be reinforced at the mild cognitive impairment stage. At the end of life, improvements to the hospice information system, the transition of long-term care hospitals to main programs, and the expansion of hospice rooms in long-term care facilities will be pursued.
◇ Tweaking the income security system… redesigning the "bottom-up" basic pension
The income security system will also undergo medium- to long-term structural reforms. The direction of reform for the basic livelihood guarantee system—including changes to how the standard median income is calculated and easing the dependent relative criteria for medical aid—will be finalized within the year as the policy course for the next three years (2027–2029).
For the basic pension, the 20% reduction applied when couples receive it simultaneously will be gradually reduced, and the system will be reorganized into a "bottom-up" structure that provides thicker support to low-income groups. For the National Pension, the government will introduce first-ever premium support for youths (in 2027), expand recognition of enrollment to cover the entire period of military service, and apply differentiated recognition based on the number of children born. The goal is to introduce a sickness benefit in 2027 to compensate for income gaps for ill workers. The self-sufficiency system will be reorganized into a tailored structure that includes social self-sufficiency, moving away from a focus on economic self-sufficiency.
◇ The emergency medical system will center on "regional hubs" and "definitive care"
The emergency medical system will be completely reorganized around regional hubs. The pilot project to innovate the transfer system in the Gwangju–Jeolla region will be expanded to six regions nationwide, and a transfer and referral linkage system centered on metropolitan situation rooms will be established. The designation criteria for regional and local emergency medical centers will shift from facility-focused to capabilities in treating 23 severe conditions, and regional emergency medical centers will increase from the current 44 to about 60. The current two-center system in Seoul will be gradually reorganized into a five-pole regional structure covering the southeast, Daegu–Gyeongbuk, central, and Honam regions.
Pediatric and psychiatric emergency responses will also be strengthened. The redesignation of specialized pediatric emergency medical centers and the expansion of regional psychiatric emergency medical centers will be pursued, and the number of Moonlight Children's Hospitals will increase to 148.
The medical system for high-risk pregnant women and newborns will also be improved. The cooperation system between maternity hospitals and regional maternal and child medical centers will be expanded nationwide, including Chungcheong, North Jeolla, and Jeju, and on-call and part-time work by specialists at local maternity hospitals at regional maternal and child medical centers will also be recognized. The central maternal and child medical center will strengthen its capabilities by increasing the transfer-dedicated team and opening its information system.
Support for liability insurance for essential medical specialists will be expanded to include emergency and neonatal intensive care specialists, with coverage up to a maximum of 1.7 billion won. The scope of state compensation for unavoidable childbirth accidents will also be broadened from being centered on newborns to including severe disabilities in mothers.
◇ Easing medical costs and filling rural medical gaps
Access to medical care and the burden of costs will also be eased in parallel. The integrated nursing and care service will be expanded to tertiary general hospitals in the capital area, and making caregiving in long-term care hospitals reimbursable will be pursued. The number of over-the-counter emergency medicines sold at convenience stores will be expanded from 11 to up to 20. Whether hair loss treatment will be covered by health insurance will also be decided in the second half. The government will operate an administrative investigation team for improper or illegal medical practices and advance an AI-based system to detect improper claims.
The regional medical system in rural and fishing communities will also be improved. A pilot project on payment schedules involving community health practitioners will be implemented, and an AI-based teleconsultation system will be introduced. Staffing support will be expanded to include senior physicians and contracted essential doctors at public health centers and public medical institutes, and private practitioners will be allowed to participate in public health care on a temporary basis. Rural medical institutions will be reorganized through a hub-and-integration approach.
◇ Accelerating the AI transition in health and welfare… jump-starting biohealth growth
The health care sector overall will be reorganized around an AI transformation. A demonstration project to automate patient referrals and returns will be fully pursued, and a digital medical information exchange system will be built to process everything at once—from viewing personal health data to exchanging clinical information. As a legal foundation for this, the enactment of the Digital Healthcare Act will also be pursued in the second half.
Welfare administration will also transition to an AI basis. Systems for automating repetitive tasks and supporting decision-making will be introduced, and a mobile administrative environment will be built that can handle everything on site from counseling to application processing. A MyData system will also be introduced that allows users to directly view and manage their welfare and care information in one place, and field-centered AI care innovations—such as expanding smart homes and smart facilities, AI counseling systems, and building Age-Tech living labs—will be pushed in parallel.
In the biohealth industry, the government will select the "top 30 national technologies," create a fund specializing in phase 3 clinical trials, and overhaul the certification system for innovative pharmaceutical companies. For K-beauty, overseas sales hubs and experience centers will be expanded, and a comprehensive plan will be prepared for the era of 2 million foreign patients. The second basic plan for advanced regenerative medicine will also be established, with regulatory easing and expanded access to treatment pursued in tandem.