Japan Press Weekly

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2010 March 3 - 9 [WELFARE]

Koike calls for state’s health insurance budget to be increased

In FY 2008, 88.3 percent of the total national health insurance premiums was collected, 2.14 point lower than the year before and the lowest since 1961, when the universal health insurance system was established.

This is because more and more people cannot keep up with the increase in premiums, said Koike, and showed that major cities such as Sapporo, Kyoto, and Osaka, require, for example, a four-member household with an annual income of three million yen to pay about 400,000 yen in health insurance premiums in a year.

Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio responded by agreeing that paying more than 10 percent of their income for health insurance premiums is too heavy a burden.

Koike stated that the premiums have become higher as the state has reduced its budget for the health insurance system.

According to the JCP representative, the rate of state contribution to health insurance funds has decreased from 49.6 percent in 1984 to 25 percent in 2007 while the people’s premiums have more than doubled during that period.

He pointed out that this spring, in Tokyo’s 23 wards, the insurance premiums will increase by 7.2 percent on average.

Koike also revealed that Democratic Party of Japan member and Vice Education Minister Suzuki Kan stated in 2008 at the Diet as an opposition party representative that the DPJ will implement a state budget of nearly 900 billion yen (to the health insurance funds) once it takes power.

In response to Koike, who urged the government to take measures to reduce the heavy burden on the general public, the prime minister said that his cabinet will make an effort to maintain budgets to address the issue.
- Akahata, March 5, 2010