What Does the Korean Medical Association Need to Talk About?

which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Korean Medical Association (KMA) vowed on January 12, 2014 to go on an all-out strike on March 3 to protest the govern-ment's proposals to allow telemedicine and for-profit medical subsidiaries. Although the realization of the strike depends on the results of the discussion between the KMA and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the KMA has decided to take the most extreme position it can take in 14 years since the all-out strike in 2000. The KMA's attitude of going on a general strike only because the government intends to allow telemedicine and for-profit medical subsidiaries is unpersuasive. Nevertheless, many doctors are siding with the KMA due to the accumulated anger about the policies of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. However, this conflict is the collision between the KMA and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, not the Health Ministry. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the hidden power behind health policy is coming out with a policy that has not undergone comprehensive discussions between government agencies leading to woe-ful results. Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has instigated the one-size-fits-all regulatory policies to suppress the increase in medical costs, with no vision for the health sector. It has emphasized the importance of primary care repeatedly, but has neglected the phenomenon that many patients have chosen tertiary care hospitals. As a result, the payments to clinics fell from 35.5% share of total health insurance payments in 2001 to 21.6% in 2011 (1). In addition, the Health Ministry has virtually ignored health care policy attending only on welfare policy and health insurance policy. As a result, the 2014 budget for the Health Ministry is 46.35 trillion won, but the pure health care policy budget is only 1.8 trillion won (2). The Finance Ministry has spread the illusion that deregulation to promote investment will develop the medical industry and will create many jobs. But an unbalanced deregulation with the essential regulations hindering the development of the health care industry remaining intact will lead to larger negative effects. As an example, allowing the coops to establish medical institutions has resulted in non-medical persons committing many illegal acts to patients. In 2011, only 15 of the 225 medical coops were faithful to the essence of the cooperative model. However, the KMA has alleged its slogan 'against …