Controversy is raging over a regulation promulgated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare last week to allow foreign medical institutions in the nation’s six free economic zones.

On the one hand, the regulation is welcomed by those who are keen to unleash the huge growth potential of the domestic health care industry. They see it as a step toward making Korea a health care powerhouse and a regional health care hub.

Yet critics denounce the government for paving the way for the emergence of for-profit hospitals that would drive many existing hospitals out of business and ultimately destroy Korea’s widely praised public health insurance system.

The regulation sets out specific requirements that foreign medical institutions should meet to set up and operate hospitals in the FEZs. It defines, for instance, the application procedure for approval and the composition of hospital staff.

The existing law on the management of the FEZs and its enforcement decree lack such details, making it difficult for potential foreign investors to push ahead with their hospital projects in Korea.

Foreign hospitals, together with foreign educational institutions, are essential to making the FEZs an attractive foreign investment destination. Foreign businessmen won’t come to Korea if their living environment is not satisfactory.

Hence, the government has consistently sought to attract foreign hospitals ever since the Kim Dae-jung administration began to create the FEZs in 2002.

The Kim administration allowed foreign medical institutions to operate for-profit hospitals in Korea, a measure denied to Korean investors.

In 2004, the Roh Moo-hyun government allowed Korean patients to use foreign hospitals on condition that they pay hospital bills out of their own pockets. This measure was intended to help foreign hospitals make a profit in Korea.

Despite these steps, the government has not been able to lure even one single foreign hospital to the FEZs. The main reason was regulatory uncertainties that held back potential foreign investors.

The government could have resolved the problem without difficulty had it not been for the strong resistance from lawmakers, doctors and other politically powerful groups.

Until recently, it lacked the courage to confront these groups. Yet the nation’s hosting last month of the U.N. Green Climate Fund gave the government a powerful justification to remove the remaining hurdles to foreign investment in hospitals.

The fund will be headquartered in Songdo, the center of the FEZ in Incheon. As hundreds of foreigners will work at its central office, establishing foreign hospitals for them has become an urgent priority.

Nevertheless, critics, including many of the lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic United Party, still oppose the emergence of for-profit hospitals on the grounds that they would create a divide in health care provision.

They note that the regulation announced last week allows a foreign hospital to fill up to 90 percent of its staff with Korean doctors. This allows foreign hospitals to lure talented Korean doctors with higher salaries and better working conditions.

If top-class doctors move over to foreign hospitals, ordinary Korean patients would be deprived of the chance to receive quality treatment.

In contrast, affluent Koreans would prefer foreign hospitals even if their hospital bills are not covered by the national health insurance system.

Critics also note that foreign hospitals would become a vehicle for chaebol groups to enter the hospital business as the FEZ law allows foreign medical institutions to partner with Korean investors and give them up to 50 percent of the joint venture’s equity.

Chaebol groups, they argue, would do all they could to privatize the state-run health insurance system to help the joint-venture hospitals attract more Korean patients. This would dismantle the public health insurance program, making it difficult for the poor to access medical services.

While these concerns are not totally unfounded, they are exaggerated. Those against foreign hospitals should not forget that if problems arise, the government would intervene promptly and address them.

Rather than resisting the introduction of foreign hospitals they should pressure the government to expand the health care infrastructure in rural areas and make medical services more affordable for the underprivileged.

Korea’s health care sector has great potential to emerge as a growth engine. Lawmakers and the government should pool their wisdom to accelerate the convergence of health care, information technology and biotechnology to create a new industry.