 The number of households in arrears with health insurance taxes increased by 300 percent The number of households in arrears on premiums for the National Health Insurance, joined mainly by self-employed individuals, has reached the record high of 4,611,603, a welfare ministry survey showed. As of June 1, 2004, 298,507 families were taken off national health insurance because of failure to pay the premiums. This was also the largest-ever number. The figure represents the reality in which a growing number of people cannot afford to pay the premiums, reported Akahata on January 30. The number of households that could not afford to pay the premiums (an average of about 155,000 yen a year per household) was 18.9 percent of all households under the national health insurance program, up about 65,000 families from the previous year. In 1997 when Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro was the minister of health and welfare, the National Health Insurance Law was revised to make it obligatory to cancel the insurance of people who fail to pay the premiums for more than one year, and this took effect with the inauguration of the Koizumi Cabinet in 2001. The number of households deprived of their insurance policies increased by more than three times than that of four years ago. Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Koike Akira said, "Under the serious economic recession and job insecurity, the National Health Insurance premiums are becoming unaffordable for many people. To cancel insurance policies affects people's lives and health, and thus violates Article 1 of the National Health Insurance Law that states that the insurance is aimed at contributing to social welfare and the public health." "In order to defend people's lives and health, the JCP is making efforts to raise the government share of premiums payment for the insurance program as well as to abolish the measure to take the policy away from the people who cannot pay the premiums," Koike added. (end) |