July 28, 2025
SEOUL – South Koreans’ financial burden for maintaining the National Health Insurance Service could rise to a quarter of income due to population aging and increasing life expectancy, a study showed Sunday.
The study, carried out by Seoul National University’s Tech-biz Innovation Platform, estimated the financial impact of population aging on the state-run health insurance. As of last year, South Korea officially became a “superaged” society by the United Nations’ definition, as one out of every five Koreans was at least 65.
The team derived three possible scenarios, and the most probable of the three showed the mandated insurance rate for those employed full-time for at least one month — currently sitting at 7.09 percent, split between employer and employee — would rise to 10.04 percent by 2035, 15.81 percent by 2050, and to 25.09 percent by 2072.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare sets the rate for the state-run health insurance program annually as a proportion of income. The rate was frozen for the third straight year in 2025, but had risen consistently since 5.33 percent in 2010.
Researchers noted that this was a conservative estimate, which did not factor in possibilities such as a rise in the cost of medical services or a decrease in general wages due to economic slump.
The study was commissioned by the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, which is under the presidential office, but is mainly handled by the Health Ministry.
The NHIS is part of the country’s public health safety net, to which all Koreans and many foreigners are mandated to subscribe. The legal limit for the insurance rate is 8 percent of income, but there is an ongoing discussion about raising the cap.
With more senior citizens in the country than ever before, the ratio of the current health expenditure to gross domestic product has been consistently rising. It was 2.6 percent of the GDP throughout the 1970s, according to the Health Ministry, but it has climbed to 7.9 percent in 2020 and to 9.2 percent in 2023.
Advances in modern medicine have extended life expectancy, but the ongoing slump in total fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have during her lifetime — has resulted in an overall aging population. The total fertility rate for 2024 inched up slightly to 0.75 from 0.72 in 2023, but it was still the lowest figure among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The NHIS sets aside a portion of premiums to cover elderly medical fees, which is currently set at 0.91 percent of each subscriber’s income. This rate is expected to steeply climb to 1.95 percent by 2035, 5.84 percent by 2050, and 13.97 percent by 2072, which would be over 15 times the figure in 2025.
The number of senior citizens needing long-term care is also expected to spike in that time, from 7.14 percent of the population in 2023 to 16.4 percent by 2072.
“Without a sustainable national health insurance program and the long-term care insurance program, the social security system will weaken and lead to the deteriorated quality of life for seniors in the superaged society,” the researchers noted.
Possible responses to this issue include expanding senior care services alongside systemic changes to more effectively manage health-related spending. The study also suggested an adjustment in the legal definition of the “senior citizen,” which is set at 65.