This paper is aimed to examine the status and issues for social service and welfare policies for the disabled, the elderly and children in 2021. In the area of social service policy, the 'Basic Social Service Plan' will be established for the first time in 2022 based on the Social Service Agency Act. It is necessary to establish the policy vision, basic goal and direction of social service policy that can continuously drive the reinforcement and development of social services policy, and to establish a substantial implementation strategy. In the area of welfare for the disabled, the core policy tasks that have been pursued in the past, such as abolition of the disability rating system, deinstitutionalization policy, and reinforcement of support for the developmentally disabled, should be continued while maintaining the consistency of the policy base. In the area of the welfare policy for the elderly for 2021, while promoting a strategy for strengthening 'aging in place' that allows the elderly to continue living in the local area, additional policy measures are needed to establish the role of medical care and care system to enhance social efficiency provision. The most notable change in the area of child welfare policy can be found in the strengthening of national responsibility and publicity for children in need, who suffer abuse/violence, poverty, and family dissolution. In 2022, it is necessary to reorganize and continuously promote laws and systems to strengthen the public control tower, a more integrated child protection system centered on the child protection teams in local communities.
Health care policy in 2022 should not be a return to the pre-pandemic, but an upstream policy that will root out recurring problems and lead to a better future. In order to not only respond to the impact of COVID-19, but also enlarge the foundation for a better future health care system, the public owned health care resources to future infectious disease X should be expanded, patient-centered value-based health care policy should go forward, and National Health Insurance coverage and health safety net should be enhanced. In particular, in order to promote patient-centered, value-oriented health care policy, health care delivery system reform should be redirected from top-down centered on tertiary hospitals to bottom-up centered on clinics, and the Primary Care Innovation Center should be established to develop and test innovative primary care models. Next year should be a year to reorganize the health care system's capacity and governance to mobilize resources, finance, and efficiently execute under any health care crisis.
This article was written with the aim of presenting the prospects and tasks for 2022 on major topics of health policy. This may serve as a starting point for discussions on changes and development of Korea's health policy for "With COVID-19" era. To this end, this article focused on strengthening preventive health management, mental health support systems, re-establishing the role of local public health care institutions, and responding to health inequality for daily recovery. This article is intended to serve as the starting point for preparing for a booster shot of health promotion policies to overcome the limitations of existing health policies that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve the goal of health policy, "extending people's health life and improving health equity."
In this article, in relation to the reform of the income security system, the reform plan for income security through the current system and the alternative income security system have been reviewed. Over the past two years, the lower quintiles had a decrease in labor income and the high quintile had reduced business income, a pattern different from the one observed in the past economic crisis. As for the working conditions of non-regular workers, the average monthly wage was only 50% of that of regular workers, the national pension coverage rate was in the upper 30% range, the health insurance coverage rate was in the 50% range, and although the employment insurance coverage rate has increased recently, but it is stil in the lower 50% range. In order to fill the gaps in support for the poor and the income security system, reform measures are being proposed from two aspects: improving the existing system and establishing an alternative income security system. Discussion on the reform of the new income security system is meaningful, but it seems that sufficient discussion is necessary in that there are points to be considered in advance.
This paper is aimed to examine the status and issues for social service and welfare policies for the disabled, the elderly and children in 2021. In the area of social service policy, the 'Basic Social Service Plan' will be established for the first time in 2022 based on the Social Service Agency Act. It is necessary to establish the policy vision, basic goal and direction of social service policy that can continuously drive the reinforcement and development of social services policy, and to establish a substantial implementation strategy. In the area of welfare for the disabled, the core policy tasks that have been pursued in the past, such as abolition of the disability rating system, deinstitutionalization policy, and reinforcement of support for the developmentally disabled, should be continued while maintaining the consistency of the policy base. In the area of the welfare policy for the elderly for 2021, while promoting a strategy for strengthening 'aging in place' that allows the elderly to continue living in the local area, additional policy measures are needed to establish the role of medical care and care system to enhance social efficiency provision. The most notable change in the area of child welfare policy can be found in the strengthening of national responsibility and publicity for children in need, who suffer abuse/violence, poverty, and family dissolution. In 2022, it is necessary to reorganize and continuously promote laws and systems to strengthen the public control tower, a more integrated child protection system centered on the child protection teams in local communities.
This paper aims to suggest future agendas for population policy from a social policy point of view, which diagnose the current population change as a crisis of social reproduction.The recent demographic change begins with changes in individual population behavior such as marriage, childbirth, and domestic movement, and major demographic indicators are interpreted as cumulative results of the family support system and social structure unique to Korean society. Therefore, it is necessary to solve social problems and expect improvement in population indicators by improving the quality of life of individuals, centering on the 4th Plan for Aging Society and Population.In particular, it is necessary to expand housing support for the young generation, improve the maternity and parental leaves for work-life balance, and review the introduction of universal care for primary school children in order to strengthen the economic basis of families in their formation period.
2022 is a year in which new policy promises are made during the presidential election, and the nation's informatization policy and statistics policy must be prepared anew.Major changes in recent information and statistics policies include the 6th National Informatization Basic Plan (2018-2022), the 2nd National Statistical Development Basic Plan (2018-2022), the Korean New Deal 2.0 Promotion Plan, the Comprehensive Plan for My Data Development, strategies for virtual convergence economy development and Metaverse, and plans for Cloud Transformation of administrative and public Institutions.There are several issues to be dealt with in policies on health and welfare information and statistics. First, it is important to establish and implement an integrated health and welfare data management system with a view to promoting the usability of health and welfare data.Second, new My Data services should be created and provided for users of health and welfare data users.Third, the use of metaverse platforms should be expanded to the health and welfare field. Fourth, efforts need to be exerted to improve the quality of health and welfare statistics.
Although the legacies of health care environment vary somewhat across different countries, there also exist a series of common denominators directly related to the unprecedented crisis we are currently facing. The typical difficulties which most countries are now experiencing include thegrowing burden of support for current and future generations owing to aging population, the ever-increasing medical expenses that exceed the economic growth rate due to a fixed low growth rate, an outdated health care use system that cannot appropriately respond to the diversified and fragmented health care needs, and the malfunctioning innovative technologies which cannot accommodate institutional request because of confrontation between public and innovation stakeholders. In this context, this paper attempts to review the recent trends in health care reform carried out by selected advanced countries in the face of the COVID-19 crisis and to present some policy implications for Korea. Our analysis of the reform trends may serve as a guideline in designing alternative health care policies in Korea.
