The South Korean government has been identifying individuals and businesses that have not made their required social insurance payments on time as part of its continued efforts to hold companies that break the law accountable and to better regulate businesses with a history of noncompliance with laws and regulations. As a result of the government's announcement, there has been an increase in dialogue about fairness and accountability with regard to South Korea's welfare system.

On December 30, the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) released personal information about 13,449 habitual offenders who owe a lot of money to four major social insurance programs.

The agency's official website and the Electronic Official Gazette of the Republic of Korea made the information public. As of December 31, 2022, the people on the list were over a year late on payments and had more debt than allowed.

The disclosure includes the names, ages, jobs, addresses, and the type and amount of premiums that have not been paid. For businesses, both the name of the business and the name of its representative were given.

The largest group of delinquents was health insurance delinquents, with 10,444 people. Next were National Pension delinquents, with 2,424 people, and people who were behind on employment and industrial accident insurance, with 581 people.

Allkpop says that the total number of delinquent accounts that were made public fell by 1.7 percent from last year, and the total amount owed dropped to 364.1 billion KRW (about $253 million). NHIS said that the drop was because there were fewer new delinquents after stricter standards were put in place last year, which led to a temporary rise in disclosures.

The person who owed the most money was a manufacturing worker with the last name Seo. Before going into detail about the case, officials said that the number was based on long-term nonpayment. Seo is said to have not paid 1.33078 billion KRW (about $924,827) in health insurance premiums since October 2017. A company in Gangnam, Seoul, had the most unpaid bills, with more than 12 billion KRW unpaid over 16 months.

There were also famous people on the list. Wikitree says that actress Shin Eun Kyung was outed for not paying her health insurance premiums since February 2014, which came to 95.17 million KRW (about $66,139).

Lee Jin Ho, a comedian and broadcaster who is currently on leave because of claims of illegal gambling, has been listed as being behind on payments of 28.84 million KRW since April 2023. Singer Cho Duk Bae was also named for unpaid premiums that go back to 2010 and are worth more than 32.39 million KRW.

An NHIS official said, "If a disclosed delinquent pays their arrears and the amount falls below the disclosure threshold, their name is immediately removed from the list. We continuously manage and update the disclosed list." We keep an eye on and update the disclosed list all the time.

The official went on to say, "We will repeatedly inform those already disclosed and those scheduled for future disclosure about the system in order to encourage voluntary payment of overdue premiums."

Officials stressed that the goal of the disclosure system is to stop people from not paying on purpose and make social insurance funds more stable financially.