JCP takes to streets against new health insurance system for elderly aged 75 and over

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

JCP takes to streets against new health insurance system for elderly aged 75 and over

On April 1, the government began kicking out the elderly aged 75 and over from the existing national health insurance program and placing them in a separate insurance system in which they are forced to pay more in premiums and endure limited medical services.

Japanese Communist Party leaders took to the streets in major cities, calling on the public to join forces to stop the coldhearted system without delay.

In front of JR Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, JCP Chair Shii Kazuo stressed that the new system is not just for shifting heavier economic burdens onto the elderly. He said, “From today, the health insurance premiums will be deducted from your pension benefits, and their access to medical services is restricted.”.

“What’s worse, the new system will discriminate against the elderly in the availability of eligible treatments at hospitals, either as outpatients or inpatients and will affect end-of-life medical treatments and even funeral services,” the JCP chair said.

Shii said that the JCP is determined to make every effort to abolish the new system.

On the same day, JCP Secretariat head Ichida Tadayoshi spoke in Omiya City in Saitama Prefecture and JCP Policy Commission chair Koike Akira in Yokohama City in Kanagawa Prefecture, calling for increasing pressure to end the adverse health insurance system by collecting signatures.

At hospitals and clinics throughout the country, staff members answered patients’ questions about the new system. Elderly people carrying their new health insurance cards were asking the staff how to use the card and if they are required to pay the premiums.

Members of the Central Council for Promotion of Social Security and the Japan Federation of Democratic Medical Institutions took to the streets to collect signatures in opposition to the new system.

In the Sugamo district of Tokyo, 111 people signed a petition to the government calling for the discriminatory system to be abolished. An 82-year-old woman denounced the government for “bullying the elderly.”

- Akahata, April 2, 2008