Japan may require more elderly people to foot 30% of their medical costs

The government will consider requiring more elderly people to bear 30% of their medical costs in an outline of measures to deal with the aging population adopted Friday.
Under the current public health insurance system, people age 75 or over pay in principle 10% of the costs for the medical treatments they received. Those with income exceeding certain levels are required to bear 20%, and those with preretirement levels of income pay 30%.
The government will consider widening the pool of elderly people required to bear 30% by fiscal 2028, given that such a measure has been included in its social security reform road map, decided last year.
As the number of elderly people living alone is expected to rise further, the government will promote the creation of places for such people to live, in order to prevent unwanted loneliness and social isolation.
In the outline, the government said it will also expand support for people who have no relatives to depend on, including by instructing guarantor service providers to operate properly in order to prevent the occurrence of problems between such businesses and elderly users.
In a report released in August, an expert team set up by the Cabinet Office called for a review of the current rule of reducing kо̄sei nenkin public pension benefits for working pensioners with certain levels of wage income.
However, the outline did not refer to any such review. Kо̄sei nenkin covers corporate and government employees, providing pension that adds to the basic pension.
The outline presents medium- to long-term basic policies on measures to address the aging population. It is revised about every five years. The previous version was released in 2018.