IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mof/journl/ppr016a.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The roles of public and private insurance for the health-care reform of Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Eiji Tajika

    (Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo)

  • Jun Kikuchi

    (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Tokyo)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main features of Japanese health-care system and to present a direction for reform. It offers the following three as the distinct features of Japanese health-care system: the first is that pubic insurance dominates the health- care market; the second is that insurers fail to play the role as an agent of patients; and the third is that health-care costs has been contained by the price control in a centralized fashion. Based on the conceptualization and the practice of the roles of public and private health-care insurances, it looks into the construction of Japanese health-care system. One of its major findings is that many apparently different problems in Japan have stemmed from the government's significant subsidies to insurers. As for the direction of reform, restoring the cost-reflecting premium is an important step toward a virtuous circle that would ultimately lead to a more sustainable health-care system in Japan.

Suggested Citation

  • Eiji Tajika & Jun Kikuchi, 2012. "The roles of public and private insurance for the health-care reform of Japan," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 8(2), pages 123-144, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:mof:journl:ppr016a
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://warp.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10248500/www.mof.go.jp/english/pri/publication/pp_review/ppr016/ppr016a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Flood, Colleen M. & Haugan, Amanda, 2010. "Is Canada odd? A comparison of European and Canadian approaches to choice and regulation of the public/private divide in health care," Health Economics, Policy and Law, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 319-341, July.
    2. Nicola Brandt, 2008. "Moving Towards more Sustainable Healthcare Financing in Germany," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 612, OECD Publishing.
    3. Valérie Paris & Marion Devaux & Lihan Wei, 2010. "Health Systems Institutional Characteristics: A Survey of 29 OECD Countries," OECD Health Working Papers 50, OECD Publishing.
    4. Oecd, 2004. "Private Health Insurance in OECD Countries: The Benefits and Costs for Individuals and Health Systems," Financial Market Trends, OECD Publishing, vol. 2004(2), pages 125-197.
    5. Francesca Colombo & Nicole Tapay, 2004. "Private Health Insurance in OECD Countries: The Benefits and Costs for Individuals and Health Systems," OECD Health Working Papers 15, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonas Pendzialek & Dusan Simic & Stephanie Stock, 2016. "Differences in price elasticities of demand for health insurance: a systematic review," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(1), pages 5-21, January.
    2. Callander, Emily J. & Shand, Antonia & Nassar, Natasha, 2021. "Inequality in out of pocket fees, government funding and utilisation of maternal health services in Australia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(6), pages 701-708.
    3. Nemanja Rancic & Mihajlo (Michael) Jakovljevic, 2016. "Long Term Health Spending Alongside Population Aging in N-11 Emerging Nations," Eastern European Business and Economics Journal, Eastern European Business and Economics Studies Centre, vol. 2(1), pages 2-26.
    4. Boone, Jan, 2015. "Basic versus supplementary health insurance: Moral hazard and adverse selection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 50-58.
    5. Sebastian Panthöfer, 2016. "Risk Selection under Public Health Insurance with Opt‐Out," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(9), pages 1163-1181, September.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10140 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Reona Hagiwara, 2022. "Welfare Effects of Health Insurance Reform: The Role of Elastic Medical Demand," IMES Discussion Paper Series 22-E-05, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    8. Hsu, Minchung & Lee, Junsang, 2013. "The Provision Of Public Universal Health Insurance: Impacts On Private Insurance, Asset Holdings, And Welfare," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(6), pages 1252-1280, September.
    9. Marenzi, Anna & Rizzi, Dino & Zanette, Michele, 2021. "Incentives for voluntary health insurance in a national health system: Evidence from Italy," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(6), pages 685-692.
    10. Kumpmann, Ingmar, 2009. "Monopolistic Competition and Costs in the Health Care Sector," IWH Discussion Papers 17/2009, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    11. Pedersen, Kjeld Møller, 2011. "Sickness absence and voluntary employer paid health insurance," DaCHE discussion papers 2011:4, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    12. Shin, Jaeun, 2012. "Private health insurance in South Korea: An international comparison," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 76-85.
    13. Andrea M. Leiter & Engelbert Theurl, 2021. "Determinants of prepaid systems of healthcare financing: a worldwide country-level perspective," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 317-344, September.
    14. Sebastian Gechert, 2010. "Supplementary Private Health Insurance in Selected Countries: Lessons for EU Governments?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 56(3), pages 444-464, September.
    15. Denise Doiron & Nathan Kettlewell, 2020. "Family formation and the demand for health insurance," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 523-533, April.
    16. Randall Ellis & Elizabeth Savage, 2008. "Run for cover now or later? The impact of premiums, threats and deadlines on private health insurance in Australia," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 257-277, December.
    17. Eriksen, Steffen & Wiese, Rasmus, 2019. "Policy induced increases in private healthcare financing provide short-term relief of total healthcare expenditure growth: Evidence from OECD countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 71-82.
    18. André, Christine, 2015. "Les systèmes de santé européens en longue période," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 17.
    19. Kiil, Astrid, 2012. "What characterises the privately insured in universal health care systems? A review of the empirical evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 60-75.
    20. Minchung Hsu & Tomoaki Yamada, 2019. "Population Aging, Health Care, and Fiscal Policy Reform: The Challenges for Japan," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(2), pages 547-577, April.
    21. Boone, J., 2014. "Basic versus Supplementary Health Insurance : The Role of Cost Effectiveness and Prevalence," Discussion Paper 2014-065, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mof:journl:ppr016a. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Policy Research Institute (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/prigvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.