The need to hold down medical expenditure is a common imperativeworldwide and, in Japan, numerous measures have been taken to achieve this end, notes Mitsuo Yashiro, chairman of the National Health Insurance Drug Price Committee of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations of Japan.
Over the past several years, fundamental reform of the health insurance system has become a major issue and the focus of considerable debate, he says, writing in the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association's JPMA Update No 19. Political parties first took up the issue of health care reform in 1997, when the ruling coalition's Council on Reform of the Medical Insurance System drew up a reform plan called National Healthcare for the 21st Century.
However, Mr Yashiro notes, the government decision to prop up the faltering economy, instead of overhauling fiscal conditions, eventually led to the abandonment of this reform plan. Nonetheless, the impact of that unimplemented plan was significant, he adds.
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