Government may exclude 90,000 intractable disease patients from medical subsidy

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Government may exclude 90,000 intractable disease patients from medical subsidy

Aiming at restraining the medical expense subsidy for intractable disease patients, the government plans to exclude in FY 2007 as many as 90,000 such patients, or one sixth of those who are currently receiving the subsidies, from the program.

This program provides patients of 45 specified intractable diseases with part or all of their medical expenses. FY 2006 budget for the program is 23.9 billion yen.

As a result of the planned adverse revision, more than 60 percent of 81,000 ulcerative colitis patients and a half of 73,000 Parkinson's disease patients will lose the subsidies next fiscal year.

Intractable patients' groups are severely criticizing the government plan as an "inhumane policy" that abandons patients suffering from the diseases whose causes and treatments are not clearly known yet. They warn that such an adverse revision will obstruct research programs that require grasping the whole picture of the diseases from mild to severe cases.

A 59-year-old Parkinson's disease patient, Mochizuki Sumie, is living alone on a monthly pension of 120,000 yen. The planned revision of the medical assistance program will force her to pay 30 percent of her medical expenses that cost her 18,000 yen every month for medication alone. "I feel despair at the prospect of such a burden, but I cannot stop taking the medication," said Mochizuki.

Sagan Sadao, 79 years old, representing an organization of ulcerative colitis patients, said, "Early diagnosis and treatment will prevent the patients from developing more serious cases. If mild cases are excluded from the medical assistance program, they have no other choice but to restrain visits to hospitals, causing an increase in serious cases."
- Akahata, October 21, 2006