Korean government to consolidate public insurance
KOREA - Government plans to consolidate the imposition and collection of its four public insurance systems, including pensions, should see a rise in pension contributions by the self employed.
The temporarily-named Application and Collection Management Corporation is due to be set up in January 2007 and will bring together the pensions, health, employment and industrial disaster systems.
Each entity's business will remain separate as only the imposition and collection of contributions will be subject to the merger.
The government's aim was to reduce the number of people not covered by public insurance and to increase the number of self employed people paying pension contributions.
Some trade unions have criticised the strategy claiming the government is putting the cart before the horse. They said before considering the integration of contribution collection, the government should seek to reform the system itself.
"The government plan would only decrease social welfare benefits and the general public would suffer as a result," trade unions claimed.
The government had carried out a failed consolidation effort in 1998.
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