With the Diet's approval of a revision to the Health Insurance Law, many observers are frustrated with the less-than-anticipated results of well over half a year of heated and repeated discussions.
In the view of experts on medicine and medical economics, lawmakers seem to have produced almost nothing substantial to deal with reform of the nation's health insurance system. The amendment will merely postpone by about two years the expected bankruptcy of the system -- achieving far less than what was originally targeted, they say.
"I think that the revised legislation will bring about a small and temporary effect, if any, to contain expenditures for prescription drugs," says Yoko Kimura, an associate professor of social welfare and medical economics at Nara Women's University. Under the revised law, outpatients will have to make additional payments for prescription drugs -- between 30 yen and 100 yen per day in accordance with the number of different drugs they receive -- starting in September.