The Cabinet has endorsed emergency measures mainly designed to alleviate public worries about pension, medical services and employment. They are bundled as a plan to provide reassurances in five areas. The initiative, pushed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, is timely, but with about 160 proposed measures there is a danger that the plan may lose focus. Also the government has not made clear how much will be the cost to implement the measures and where it will find the necessary funds.
The five areas are policies for the elderly, medical services, support for child-rearing, policies for irregularly employed workers and reform of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The government should realize that some measures need especially urgent implementation. They include financial support for obstetricians dispatched to rural areas and emergency medical care doctors who work at night and on holidays, and an expansion of the nationwide quota for medical students.
The plan would give a ray of hope to irregularly employed workers. The so-called "Net cafe refugees" — young people who have no full-time jobs, no home and have to spend the night at Internet cafes — would receive help to find full-time employment, loans to rent housing and living expenses. But the scale of this assistance remains unclear. The plan also calls for expanding the coverage of social insurance for irregularly employed workers.