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Japan Press Weekly
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Pensioners hold rallies demanding abolition of new discriminatory health insurance system
About 10,000 people took part in a day of action on October 16 throughout the country demanding the abolition of the new health insurance system that discriminates against elderly people aged 75 and over.
The action, called for by the Japan Pensioners’ Union, was billed as a “pensioners’ revolt” likened to peasants’ revolts in Japan in the feudal era.
On the previous day, the automatic deduction of insurance premiums from pension benefits took place in defiance of growing calls for the discriminatory system to be abolished.
Speaking at a rally held at Tokyo’s Hibiya Amphitheatre, Pensioners’ Union President Shinozuka Tasuke said, “We should take advantage of the upcoming general election as an opportunity to win pensioners’ demands.” He called on the 3,000 rally participants to further increase the movement calling for the abolition of the new health insurance system that excludes the elderly people aged 75 and over from the existing health insurance. He also called for the creation of a minimum pension system that does not rely on consumption tax revenues, and an increase in pension benefits in accordance with cost of living increases.
A 73-year-old man from Chiba Prefecture said, “National Health Insurance premiums have just begun being withheld from my pension benefits. It’s like the annual land tax imposed on peasants by local rulers in the feudal Edo Period.”
A 74-year-old woman from Saitama Prefecture said, “Many people are now living longer, but the government policy is like telling us not to live longer.”
Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira (House of Councilors member) spoke at the Tokyo rally. He said, “The JCP is working hard to abolish this notorious health insurance program and establish decent healthcare, pension, and nursing-care systems that will ease people’s anxieties.”
A Democratic Party of Japan member of the Diet and a People’s New Party vice-leader were also present at the rally. - Akahata, October 17, 2008
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