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Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Stop adverse revision of medical insurance system

About 2,000 people, mainly medical services-related workers, held a rally in Tokyo on October 27 to start the struggle against the government's plan to force patients to pay more for medical treatment.

Sumie Kenyu spoke on behalf of the Liaison Council of Medical Organizations which organized the rally. He said that the health ministry's "medical reform" plan that calls for higher share of costs for medical services to be shouldered by elderly patients is "designed to reduce as much as possible health insurance payments and shift heavier burdens onto patients."

Koike Akira, the Japanese Communist Party's Policy Commission chair, said, "The government's adverse medical reform plan shares the same roots with the attempt to adversely revise the war-renouncing Article 9. Both plans are attacks on lives. Let us act to increase public awareness and the movement calling for the right to live in peace with dignity." -- Akahata, October 28, 2005