Today’s Talk

January 2nd, 2007 by CD

Part Two     (Part One)

Welcome back to my extended series on Japan’s national health care system. This is to get our minds running into how we could use or could not use some of the implementations and measures that the Japanese government uses for its national health plan. So if you have not read part 1, do so here.

This post will talk about how Japan’s health care system is funded and the cost associated with different plans.

Cost
• Employer-Based Insurance — Funded by employers (50-80% of cost) and premiums paid by the employees (4-8%) which can also be split in half by the employers. Co payments vary by plan. 74% of the Patient Cost-Sharing Restoration Program even picks up part of the co-payment.
• NHI — depend on income, assets, and benefit payments from the previous year.
• Elderly — $5 for outpatient and 3.50 for inpatient care a day.

Funded
• 81.5% of health spending is funded by public sources.
• Corporate and individual premiums.
• Government does provide general revenues to subsidize part of the population.
• Government subsidies financed 50% of the benefit payments in the NHI plan.
• Health services are subject to co-payments of 10-30% ($231-438 per month).