Japan Press Weekly

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2011 December 21 - 2012 January 5 [POLITICS]

TPP issue has medical associations rethinking continuing with DPJ support

“Everyone is entitled to have their health and lives protected under a universal healthcare system. This is part of the Japanese culture”.

Saito Hiroshi, president of the Ibaraki Medical Associations, described as above the significance of Japan’s universal healthcare system in his lecture on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement delivered at a gathering held by the Ibaraki prefectural chapter of the Progressive Unity Forum (Kakushinkon) on December 10.

This is the first lecture given by Ibaraki MA president to the prefectural Kakushinkon. Saito said that he wanted his remarks to be heard by Kakushinkon as he is aware of the fact that the organization is participated in by a wide range of citizens.

He said, “The United States urges Japan to open its healthcare system to foreign corporations. We can’t accept the TPP simply because, unlike the media’s description of it as the 3rd opening of Japan, it really is to turn Japan into a U.S. dependency.”

In September 2008, the Ibaraki Medical League, a political wing of the prefectural MA, declared its support for Democratic Party of Japan candidates in all 7 constituencies of the prefecture in national elections.

This “rebellion” of the medical league symbolized the collapse of a support base for the Liberal Democratic Party because the league in past years had been a supporter of the LDP.

Today, however, doctors are beginning to rethink their support for the DPJ government after they witnessed the government’s eagerness to take part in the TPP free-trade pact.

On October 19, when Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko revealed his eagerness to attend TPP negotiations, the medical association in Ibaraki and the prefectural center of Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) jointly organized an emergency rally to oppose Japan taking part in TPP negotiations. Japanese Communist Party prefectural assembly member Ouchi Kumiko was invited, as the first JCP guest to attend such occasions. On November 7, there were talks between the JCP Ibaraki prefectural committee and the prefectural MA.

A complicated change has taken place in doctors’ opinions towards the DPJ government in Ibaraki. Some say, “Let’s watch a little longer. Returning to the LDP won’t change anything.” Others say in a resigned tone, “Simply to resist the LDP, we’ve supported the DPJ but in vain.”

Yamaguchi Akira, director of an internal medicine clinic in Hitachinaka City, supported the DPJ in the 2009 general election. He had DPJ posters put up around his clinic’s parking lot. He said, “It’s not that I proactively supported DPJ policies. It was in reaction to the squeeze in national medical budgets since the Koizumi LDP government that I turned to the DPJ.”

Present Prime Minister Noda has moved clearly toward encouraging corporations to increase their profits. Yamaguchi said that he feels as if time is going back to the Koizumi “structural reform” policy of squeezed medical budgets, and is now reluctant to keep on supporting the DPJ.

Yamakawa Fumio, president of the prefectural Democratic Medical Institutions Association, commented on the moves of the MA in the prefecture, saying “The DPJ pledged to change the regressive medical policies of the LDP when it came into power, but nothing has changed. Such a stifling social atmosphere is felt in the medical field.”