A panel of the health and welfare ministry has proposed increasing the number of hard-to-cure diseases for which patients may receive subsidies for treatment from the current 56 to more than 300. The ministry hopes to enact a law incorporating the panel's proposal in and after fiscal 2014.

As the panel discusses the details, it should make public its discussions so that the opinions of patients will be reflected and that the public will understand and support the subsidy system.

In 1971 the ministry started the current support system with the payment of ¥10,000 monthly to sufferers of SMON (subacute myelo-optico-neuropathy). In 1972 it was found that use of quinoform, a medicine for intestinal disorders, caused the nerve disease. Thinking that the system helps accumulate data on hard-to-cure diseases needed for advancing research, the ministry that year adopted a comprehensive outline to push countermeasures for hard-to-cure diseases and made four diseases eligible for subsidies.