3.9 million households are unable to pay national health insurance premiums

In Japan, about 3.9 million households are unable to pay national health
insurance premiums and 110,000 of them have their insurance policy taken
away by local municipal offices after they fail to pay the premiums for 12
months.

Akahata on November 21 reported that the prolonged economic recession and
high insurance premiums are threatening the people's health and lives.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's June 1 survey published on
November 20 said the number of households which have fallen into arrears
with national health insurance premiums accounts for 17.7 percent of all
insured households, up about 200,000 from a year ago.

The number of households which are denied national health insurance has
risen 14.8 percent during the past 12 months. Such households are rapidly
increasing to exceed 160,000 as of October 1, according to an independent
survey conducted by a citizens organization.

Under the Koizumi "reform" which encourages corporate restructuring, many
companies have gone bankrupt and workers have lost their jobs. Those people
who are not working as required to join the national health insurance
system, but many of them are unable to pay the high insurance premiums which
are calculated based on their previous year's annual income.

In April this year in Kitakyushu City, in western Japan, a 32-year-old
woman who didn't have a national health insurance policy died in a hospital
after being taken there in an ambulance. She had her insurance policy taken
away by the city office a year ago because she couldn't pay the premiums
after her husband had lost his job. She had Basedow's disease and diabetes.

Japanese Communist Party House of Councilors Member Koike Akira in the
House's Committee on Health, Welfare and Labor meeting on October 25
demanded that local municipal offices not automatically take away insurance
cards of those who didn't pay insurance premiums for one year. He pushed the
ministry into promising to have local municipal offices take into
consideration each household's specific circumstances and reasons for
nonpayment. (end)