The Japanese spent 31.4 trillion yen for medical services in fiscal 2004, or about 246,000 yen per person, an increase of 2 percent from the previous year. The figure of 2 percent may be a small and acceptable growth, requiring no stricter lid on the rise of the nation's medical spending. But Japan's financial deterioration has made a reduction in medical costs an important policy issue. A reduction in medical spending is necessary to help rehabilitate the government's financial condition and to keep the health-insurance system from going bankrupt. Helping the nation's citizens maintain a healthy, productive life depends on the sound management of the health-insurance system.

Mr. Hidehisa Otsuji, minister of health, labor and welfare, hopes to push down medical-service benefits paid by health-insurance schemes and the central and local governments to about 9 percent of national income in fiscal 2025. Unless special measures are taken to reduce total medical spending, it is estimated that the amount of benefits will reach 11 percent of national income in fiscal 2025, up from 7 percent in fiscal 2004. The health ministry envisages reducing the medical benefits by about 6.5 trillion yen that year.

Rising medical costs for elderly people is the largest contributor to the increase in the nation's medical service outlays. The per-capita medical cost for elderly people in Japan is about five times higher than the amount spent on younger people. Elderly people visit hospitals more frequently and are hospitalized for longer periods of time than younger people. To reduce the length of hospitalization stays, the health ministry plans to strengthen public preventive education on adult-onset diseases, including diabetes and hypertension, and to build a system to care for sick people at home instead of in hospitals.