"포용적 사회보장체계 구축에 2023년까지 332조 투입"
The government plans to inject hundreds of billions of dollars to improve the nation's social security... in areas including employment, education and health.
The hope is this'll help improve quality of life... and pull the nation up from the bottom of the OECD standings.
Cha Sang-mi outlines the five-year roadmap for us.
The South Korean government has revealed its master plan to lift South Koreans' ranking in terms of quality of life by injecting nearly 3-hundred billion U.S. dollars for the nation's social security system.
This comes as South Korea has long languished at the bottom among major advanced economies, despite its large economy faring well.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on Tuesday laid out its roadmap to increase the OECD ranking of people's quality of living -- from 28th in 2017 -- to 20th by 2023 and the global top ten by 2040.
The five-year plan covers a range of sectors in society. These are the four major ones:
In employment and education, the government aims to reduce the proportion of low-income workers from 22 percent to 15 percent by 2040 and waive tuition for high school students.
This would benefit an estimated 1-point-5 million people or more.
The government will also strive to reduce the poverty rate by strengthening public assistance and income security for working-age people.
In the health sector, the aim over the next twenty years... is to extend Koreans' healthy lifespan from 73 years to 78 years... by strengthening health insurance and reducing medical costs to one-third of the current amount.
Insurance will be expanded to cover for MRIs and ultrasounds.
The government will also nearly double its social spending, tailored to the stage of life people are in,... and it will build more national and public nursing and care homes.
The plan will cost about 295 billion U.S. dollars... starting this year with a budget of 48 billion.
Cha Sang-mi, Arirang News.
