Premium
Japan's health care system faces a perfect storm
Author(s) -
Kido Kaori,
Tsukamoto Katsura
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the international journal of health planning and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1099-1751
pISSN - 0749-6753
DOI - 10.1002/hpm.2936
Subject(s) - health care , subsidy , government (linguistics) , business , universal health care , public economics , population , health insurance , health policy , actuarial science , economics , economic growth , environmental health , medicine , market economy , linguistics , philosophy
Summary Although Japan has implemented a universal health care system that is universal in terms of free access to health care services, it is managed by fragmented and financially insecure insurance societies that have cumulative deficits even with government subsidies. In terms of insurance premiums, the system is regressive to low‐income and unstable workers, and the social benefit scheme only captures 1.6% of this population. The Japanese government is continuously instituting new health care policies to reduce growing health care expenditures. Recent health care reforms may improve economic efficiency, but the changes remain limited to controlling access to health services and pricing measures.