Healthcare

October 2003

Prime Minister Koizumi said that the future benefit level of an employee's pension may inevitably decline to about 50% of the annual take-home pay of today's salaried workers. Prime Minister also said that premiums workers pay into the pension system should be hiked to 10%of their annual pretax income. The pension Koizumi mentioned covers employees at private companies and is one of the public pension programs whose operations involve the government. The current benefit level of the employee's pension system is 59% of the average annual income of male salaried workers. (October 29, Kyodo News, the Daily Yomiuri)

In its fiscal 2003 deregulation proposal, the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) calls for the implementation of 306 reform items, including relaxed restrictions on uninsured medical treatment. Specifically, the business lobby seeks to allow hospitals and clinics offering treatment covered under public health insurance to also provide uncovered services. It also seeks to enable stock companies to operate hospitals. In child care, Nippon Keidanren calls for abolishing a regulation requiring day care facilities to have a total window area equal to least one-fifth of floor space. It views that discarding this restriction will help increase day care centers in urban areas. In the business sector, the group wants to lift the ban on client firms interviewing temporary staffers ahead of their arrival and on agencies sending temps' resumes to client firms. This will help to eliminate misunderstandings regarding temps' qualifications. In education, Nippon Keidanren calls for scrapping a rule requiring new universities to possess athletic fields at the time of funding. Whether it is an absolute must for institutions of higher education to have athletic fields, the lobby asks, blaming the rule for blocking the establishment of universities in convenient locations in urban areas. (October 17, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)