JCP publishes appeal for cancellation of introduction of harsh medical-care system for the elderly

   The Japanese Communist Party on October 17 published an appeal calling on the public to stop the introduction of the medical-care system for the elderly aged 75 or more scheduled for next April.

   The JCP plans to seek the cooperation of a wide range of organizations to achieve this, including all political parties, medical associations, organizations of hospitals, clinics, and healthcare workers, municipalities, senior citizens’ associations, and labor unions.

   The government is pushing ahead with the introduction of the medical-care system that will separate the elderly aged 75 or more from other generations and impose heavier burdens and differential medical services on them. The more this new system becomes known to the public, the more opposition to it is strengthened.

   Even government officials have begun to talk about postponing the implementation but they are merely considering delaying part of the increase in the burden, JCP Policy Commission Chair Koike Akira pointed out at a news conference held on the same day in the Diet Building. Koike said, “The implementation of the program must be cancelled.”

   Koike stressed that the government is attempting to carry out an unprecedentedly adverse revision of the medical insurance system because under the new system, insurance premiums will be deducted in advance from pension benefits, insurance cards of the elderly people in arrears in premium payment will be confiscated, and differential and improper medical care will be provided for the elderly.

   Koike pointed out that public anxiety over the new system is growing as is seen from the fact that in a short period of time, more than 200 prefectural and municipal assemblies have adopted resolutions calling for a freeze or review of its introduction.

   Koike said, “Putting aside any differences of opinion on a future medical care system for the elderly, we will take the lead in a joint struggle based on the single agreed point of demanding cancellation of the implementation. The JCP will make efforts to scrap such a system.”

- Akahata, October 18, 2007