Japan Press Weekly

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2014 October 15 - 21 [ECONOMY]

Welfare ministry seeks to impose heavier burden of medical costs on public

The Welfare Ministry on October 15 announced a plan to adversely revise public health insurance programs with an intent to impose a heavier burden on the general public. This shows that the government explanation that it needed a consumption tax hike to improve social welfare programs was a lie.

In the plan submitted to a subcommittee of the Welfare Ministry’s advisory council on social welfare programs, the ministry indicated its support for various measures which will force the people to shoulder a larger share of medical costs.

One of those measures is cuts in the health insurance system for the elderly aged 75 and over. The government plans to abolish the special measure to exempt households who earn a yearly pension income of less than 2.5 million yen from paying insurance premiums. The plan will affect 8.65 million aged people. For instance, the amount to be paid for the premium for a single household receiving pension benefits of less than 800,000 yen a year will be increased by threefold from 370 yen to 1,120 yen a month.

In addition, the ministry seeks to collect another 70 billion yen by raising the rate of employees’ health insurance contributions.

In subcommittee discussions, representatives of the Japan Federation of Senior Citizens Clubs and the Japanese Nursing Association expressed their opposition to the government’s plan.