Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 December 23 - 2016 January 5 [POLITICS]

Cut in gov’t remuneration to hospitals will damage local medical infrastructures

The Abe government has decided to further reduce its remuneration paid to medical institutions for providing medical services covered by public health insurance. This will adversely affect the financial condition of already struggling hospitals and clinics.

With the aim of slashing medical spending, the government revised the national medical fee schedule so that the amount of government remuneration in 2016 will decrease by 1.03% in real terms from the previous year.

Looking back at the first decade of the 21st century, the government slashed its remuneration to medical institutions four times, which caused shortages of doctors and nurses at hospitals and clinics and a decrease in the number of beds for inpatients. As a result, medical institutions in many prefectures suffered severely. This negative impact has yet to be repaired as shown in a Health Ministry survey; Hospitals in 2014 reported profit/loss rates of minus 3.1% on average and that the profitability of clinics has worsened.

Social welfare spending is projected to grow by one trillion yen a year mainly due to the growth of the elderly population, and the government in its budgetary guidelines insists on the need to halve the annual increase to 500 billion yen. Pushed by the Finance Ministry, the Health Ministry revised the medical fee schedule in order to decrease its budgetary request for fiscal year 2016 to around 500 billion yen from its initial request of 670 billion yen.

Medical professionals immediately expressed their opposition to the government announcement. Japan Medical Association President Yokokura Yoshitake said, “Medical service is a vital public service and the social welfare system is a safety net for the general public. If the government continues to cut social welfare spending just to enforce financial discipline, regional medical infrastructures will again receive a severe blow.”

The government is creating a path toward a weaker social welfare system, and thus its move will lead to a confrontation with the general public, concluded Akahata.

Past related article:
> Number of hospital closures triples in five years [April 17, 2015]