Leaders of rival parties to meet over health services disruptions

INCHEON -- Leaders of the ruling and opposition parties will hold their first meeting on Sunday to discuss the doctors’ protest of the government’s reform initiatives and its toll on the country’s health care systems, both parties said Friday.

The two main parties failed to reach an agreement over a bill to appoint a special counsel to investigate the on-duty death of a Marine in July last year, and another opposition-led bill for handing out cash to South Koreans to boost consumption.

Claiming that the Yoon Suk Yeol administration and the ruling party are failing to meet public expectations, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Lee Jae-myung urged his party to step up.

Speaking on the last day of the party’s two-day retreat, he said, “The Assembly -- especially the Democratic Party -- has to step up where the government fails.”

“The Assembly has to go beyond keeping the government in check, and lead the direction of national affairs in the country because the government and ruling party are failing to do so,” he said.

“To stop the livelihoods of South Koreans collapsing, the Democratic Party has the responsibility to utilize all powers given to the Assembly.”

In a message to the People Power Party, he said he would like to remind them that “they, not the Democratic Party, are the ruling party.”

“We are the opposition. It is the ruling party and the administration in power that have the authority to shape and implement policies and lead the country in a better direction,” he said. “But somehow it seems things are often the other way around.”

He said he would expand the party’s policy committee to broaden legislative efforts to tackle issues that directly affect South Korean households.

Lee said Yoon’s unending rift with the country’s doctors over his contentious reform initiatives are to blame for disruptions to health care services. Many hospitals across the country have shut down or reduced emergency services amid the prolonged walkouts.

“People’s lives come before the president’s ego,” the Democratic Party leader said, calling on the president to “meet the health care workers halfway.”

“People are suffering the brunt of the incompetence of the Yoon administration, case in point being the ongoing medical crisis that is threatening the health and lives of all South Koreans.”

The retreat, which took place at a hotel in Incheon near Seoul, was attended by nearly all of the Democratic Party lawmakers.

On Yoon’s briefing on state affairs held during the retreat, one Democratic Party said the president was “out of touch with the reality facing South Koreans.” “How he can praise his health care policies when so many report being denied access to care is baffling,” he said.

In yet another public display of the divide between Yoon and the ruling People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon, the president did not attend his party’s yearly retreat, also held on Thursday and Friday.

Han suggested the administration put its health care reform policies on hold to convince doctors to return to hospitals, which the presidential office refused.