Japan has been resorting to patchwork reforms over the past decade to prevent the health care system from collapsing as a rapidly graying society demands more funds from an ever-shrinking pool of tax revenue.
Despite improvements, the outline of the government's latest reform plan, approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, is more of the same, experts say.
Instead of designing a welfare system sustainable for decades to come, the new reform plan assumes the consumption tax will rise in April to fund ballooning welfare costs and relieve pressure on the national debt. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won't commit to the tax hike until autumn — if he judges the economy is strong enough to weather it.