Japan Press Weekly

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2016 November 16 - 22 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Citizens urge gov’t to create state program to offer children free medical care

A civil network consisting of women’s groups as well as medical and welfare-related organizations held a rally on November 17 in the Diet building to push the government to establish a national program to provide free medical care to children.

As a result of concerted efforts by civic groups and Japanese Communist Party local assemblypersons, all municipalities in the country offer child healthcare services for free or at least reduce their medical bills with subsidies. However, the central government is imposing penalties on municipalities which provide free medical services for children by slashing state subsidies to the national health insurance programs operated by those municipalities.

Japanese Health and Welfare Co-operative Federation managing director Nomoto Yasuo gave a speech at the rally, noting that the child poverty issue has become more serious. “Imposing ‘penalties’ for doing the right thing goes against social justice,” he said.

Watanabe Satsuki of the New Japan Women’s Association (Shinfujin) pointed out that parents living in municipalities which have no free medical care program available frequently give up taking their children to a doctor. “The national government should introduce a system to treat children free of charge,” she stressed.

The rally was also joined by lawmakers from the Japanese Communist and Democratic parties. They received about 42,000 petition signatures calling for the creation of a national free medical program for children.

On the same day, those citizens petitioned Health Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa to launch such a free medical system and stop penalizing local governments offering children healthcare services for free.

The minister said in response, “Reasonable financial resources are necessary for the state to set up such a program. With regard to eliminating the penalties, we’ve received similar requests from local government heads. I’ll take it into consideration.”

Past related article:
> Gov’t should play role in eliminating child poverty [April 10, 2016]