{"slug": "universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee", "title": "Universal access to healthcare key to reviving Korea’s regions: Lee", "summary": "President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday called for stronger government role in ensuring universal access to quality healthcare as a prerequisite for narrowing regional disparities and reviving South Korea's quieter regions, during a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae. The Health and Welfare Minister unveiled a strategy to strengthen regional, essential and public healthcare, including a 1.2 trillion won ($811 million) special account for 2027 and 3.6 trillion won annual investment through national health insurance. Separately, the AI Basic Healthcare subcommittee presented a plan to integrate AI into healthcare, including AI-assisted diagnostics and real-time patient-hospital matching.", "body_md": "President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday cast easy access to quality healthcare as a prerequisite for narrowing regional disparities in access to medical services and reviving South Korea's quieter regions.\n\nPresiding over a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, he called for a stronger government role in reversing the concentration of patients and medical resources in the Seoul metropolitan area.\n\n“Both demand and supply are concentrated in one place. We must find a way to address this problem, and I believe the solution ultimately lies in strengthening the public role,” said Lee.\n\nThe meeting took place shortly after the Lee administration unveiled three megaprojects in semiconductors, artificial intelligence data centers and physical AI, as part of its flagship push for region-led, balanced growth.\n\nLee said adequate medical services, alongside education and culture, are among the most important conditions that encourage people to settle in regional communities and help attract industries to those areas.\n\n“What matters ultimately is the state of medical care — whether adequate medical services are available when I, or my family members, fall ill or need them,” Lee said.\n\nHeld under the slogan “healthcare for all, wherever they live,” the meeting brought together medical professionals, representatives of patient and civic groups, and experts to discuss a broad overhaul of the country’s regional, essential and public healthcare systems.\n\nDiscussions focused particularly on preventing avoidable deaths caused by delays in receiving emergency treatment and helping patients who are forced to travel outside their home regions to receive the care they need.\n\nHealth and Welfare Minister Jeong Eun-kyeong unveiled a strategy to strengthen regional, essential and public healthcare.\n\nAt its core, the plan seeks to ensure that people can receive routine, emergency and critical care within their own regions without having to travel to major hospitals in Greater Seoul, which includes Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.\n\nThe government plans to develop regional national university hospitals to a level comparable to that of the five largest hospitals in Greater Seoul, while expanding public hospitals and regional networks for emergency, trauma, maternal and pediatric care.\n\nIt will establish a 1.2 trillion won ($811 million) special account for regional and essential healthcare in 2027 and invest 3.6 trillion won annually through the national health insurance system to raise reimbursement rates for critical and essential medical services.\n\nLong-term plans include increasing the number of medical professionals outside the capital through a regional doctor program, a national graduate medical school, and the establishment of medical schools in regions that currently lack one.\n\nSeo Joon-beom, head of the AI Basic Healthcare subcommittee under the Presidential National AI Strategy Committee, presented a separate strategy for integrating artificial intelligence into the healthcare system.\n\nThe plan calls for introducing AI-assisted diagnostic and health management technologies at public health centers and local clinics, enabling patients outside the capital to receive advanced medical support comparable to that available at university hospitals.\n\nAI would also analyze patients’ conditions and hospitals’ capacity in real time to direct emergency patients to appropriate facilities. The government plans to facilitate the sharing of personal medical records among hospitals to reduce duplicate testing and disruptions in care.\n\nThe strategy also seeks to connect public hospitals nationwide through a single AI platform, integrate fragmented medical data, and establish reimbursement, workforce, ethical and security frameworks for the nationwide adoption of medical AI.\n\ndagyumji@heraldcorp.com", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee", "canonical_source": "https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10816643", "published_at": "2026-07-22 06:17:55+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-22 06:27:48.977551+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Lee Jae Myung", "Cheong Wa Dae", "Jeong Eun-kyeong", "Health and Welfare Ministry", "Seo Joon-beom", "Presidential National AI Strategy Committee", "AI Basic Healthcare subcommittee"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/universal-access-to-healthcare-key-to-reviving-koreas-regions-lee.jsonld"}}