  Government should ease burdens of low-income elderly care receivers -- Akahata editorial, November 15The Ministry of Heath, Labor, and Welfare is considering an overhaul of the nursing care insurance system. The main aim is that as more people receive the nursing care services, it will be necessary to increase beneficiaries' shares of burden for the costs. The problem, however, is that the insurance premiums and fees for the services are so high that many elderly people cannot afford to receive needed services. If the government really wants to review the system, it should solve this basic problem. 30 percent of municipalities have own relief measures Questioning the government at the House of Representatives plenary session, Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Shii Kazuo stated, "In order to provide people in need with adequate services irrespective of their income, a system to reduce the premiums or service fees or to exempt people in need from paying them should be established, as many municipalities now do." Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro answered that the government has already reduced the premiums and charges for low-income earners in proportion to their incomes. However, due to the insufficiency of this system, many municipalities are forced to take their own measures to reduce or exempt low-income earners from heavy burdens. Of all 3,123 municipalities across the country, 28 percent reduce care service charges, and 31 percent cut the premiums for low-income earners, which is six times as much as it was in April 2001, one year after the nursing care insurance system began. In response to these measures, the welfare ministry is putting pressure on these municipalities to end the subsidies as inappropriate. The government should stop quibbling about each municipality's own system and stop thinking of increasing the service fees to keep care services from being used appropriately. Insufficient measures in defense of low-income earners Defining the government's relief measure for low-income earners as insufficient, the National Mayors' Association has adopted a resolution that calls for a drastic review of the nursing care insurance system to take comprehensive and uniform measures to meet the situation. The government should establish a system to reduce the insurance premiums or service charges and exempt people in need from paying these extra burdens. (end) |