Single Payer Health Insurance: My Japanese Experience

[Joanne98]

by ProgressiveTokyo

Single Payer Health Insurance: My Japanese Experience Updated Sat May 23, 2009 at 06:18:30 AM PDT

As the debate about Health Care continues to heat up with the usual suspects from the Health Insurance industry begining their campaign to convince Americans that Universal Health insurance is against their best interests, would decrease quality of care, limit options, increase wait time (as if those under the current system don`t have similar issues)and all the other usual lies they spout hoping to scare a large enough portion of the electorate to dash the hopes of us who want Health Care reform.

I would like to share with you MY experience under a single payer system which we have here in Japan. It is called National Health Care Service or for those of you who can read Japanese: 国民健康保険

ProgressiveTokyo's diary :: ::
Of course first I should tell you how it`s paid for before I go into the details of how it works.

Every month a certain percentage is deducted from my pay check which includes both my National Health Care and my National Pension. This amount is matched by my employer. While I don`t wish to discuss my finances in detail, I can tell you every month they deduct roughly 40,000 yen (around $385 dollars) by comparison my wife who is a stay at home mom pays roughly 7000 yen (around $65) for her coverage. All children under 15 are covered for free.

Once you are in the National Health Care system you are given a National Health card. It looks like this:

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/23/734612/-Single-Payer-Health-Insurance:-My-Japanese-Experience-Updated

[LongTomH]

1. $385 a Month for REAL Healh Care AND a Pension?????

That's less than a lot of us are paying DenialCare Inc for a fake 'health insurance' that's only good if you don't get sick.

:kick:

[geckosfeet]

4. ... and my guess is that is on a much larger paycheck in US dollars. I would

like to know, on a percentage basis, how much ones gross pay is deducted for national health care and pension. And how is that percentage pro-rated for higher or lower gross income levels.

If it's less than 10% - 5 out of 5 stars (I would jump on this in a nano-second)
If it's less than 15% - 4 out of 5 stars
If it's less than 20% - 3 out of 5 stars
If it's less than 25% - 2 out of 5 stars

I would find more than 25% difficult to swallow but I would do it if everyone in the country was provided with health care and a modest pension.

[subterranean]

9. National Health Insurance premiums (not including pension)

are 8.2 percent of monthly salary, with an annual maximum of 530,000 yen (roughly $5,300). That's if you pay it all yourself with no employer contribution. There is no deductible, and you get reimbursed if your out-of-pocket costs at a single provider exceed a certain limit in a single month (the limit depends on income, but I think it's around $700 for a middle-income person). That prevents you from getting hit with huge medical bills. The insurance also includes dental coverage. Sounds like a pretty good system, doesn't it? By the way, health insurance is mandatory in Japan. Most people get it through their employer, but those who don't are required to enroll in the NHI plan.

[geckosfeet]

10. Not pretty good -

pretty god damn excellent.

Can we do it here for that much?

[Aragorn]

13. a bargain then

Compare to present US per cent for SS/Medicare - even if you're not ON Medicare. Of course we could do it for the same here.

[lildreamer316]

12. In the addendum he says you pay on a sliding scale, too..

depending on what you make. Ideal!!

[mike_c]

2. most of the rest of the industrialized world has some such system...

...for their citizens. In the U.S., our government tells us that's horrific beyond expression-- it's so awful that it's utterly "off the table" for discussion in America.

When will people in this country wake up and kick the rat bastards out of office?

[suchadeal]

3. The 12th of Never

"When will people in this country wake up and kick the rat bastards out of office"?

[dgibby]

5. Only in America

are we stupid enough to actually PAY corporations to kill us. Unbelievable!

[Karenina]

14. BEST POST OF THREAD AWARD!!!

:applause:

[dgibby]

16. Thanks! Sad, isn't it?

It's kinda like the old adage, "The beatings will continue until morale improves". You just can't make this stuff up.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. My sister and her family are Canadians so I get the truth without scary propaganda

They love their health care system up there. Every system has its problems, of course, but the Canadian system is extraordinarily sensible and civilized.

Our system in the States is madness. Once we finally liberate ourselves from the insurance companies and the HMOs, we'll wonder what took us so long.

[Wednesdays]

7. K&R

:kick:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. One of my fellow translators (an American) has to live in Japan

for the rest of his life because he developed a heart condition while working over there and is uninsurable here.

I didn't get sick during the time I was a student in Japan, but at that time, thirty years ago, the monthly premium for people who were not employed was about $5 and the copay for treatment was 4% for students enrolled in a university (as I was). It's certainly a lot more now, but $5 with a 4% copay would have been a tremendous deal in the U.S., even in the 1970s.

[eridani]

11. An older friend of mine worked in Japan for 10 years and used that system. Unfortunately

--she came back to the US and couldn't get insurance at any price because of her age and pre-existing conditions.

[pmorlan1]

15. WaPo lied to readers today about Baucus and health care reform

Today the Post put out a piece about Max Baucus and health care reform that blatantly lied to readers.

http://democracity.blogspot.com/2009/05/washington-post-lied-to-its-readers.html