People 75 and older should pay 10 percent of the premium under a proposed public health insurance plan, health minister Chikara Sakaguchi said Saturday.

"Half would come from state tax funds and 40 percent would probably be contributed by younger people, while the elderly would pay 10 percent of the premium themselves," the health, labor and welfare minister said in a speech in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture.

Contributions from "younger people" refers to payments working people into national health insurance and other public health insurance systems.

The Cabinet on Friday approved a basic principle for medical reform that would require people 75 and older to shoulder more of the cost for their own health insurance. The medical reform plans are intended to be launched by fiscal 2008. However, the blueprint has left open some key issues, such as the overall cost to the government, the premium to be paid by policyholders and who would run the program.

Government officials have merely said that state coffers would cover half the cost and a more detailed blueprint would be drawn up later this year.

The medical reform aims to lessen the monetary burden on the working population in an increasingly aging society.