Insurance
Health insurance is, in general, mandatory for residents of Japan, though there is no penalty on individuals who choose not to comply, and around 10% of the population does not enroll. There are a total of eight health insurance systems in Japan. They can then be divided into two categories, Employees' Health Insurance (健康保険, Kenkō-Hoken?) and National Health Insurance (国民健康保険, Kokumin-Kenkō-Hoken?). Employees’ Health Insurance is broken down to the following systems:
- Union Managed Health Insurance
- Government Managed Health Insurance
- Seaman’s Insurance
- National Public Workers Mutual Aid Association Insurance
- Local Public Workers Mutual Aid Association Insurance
- Private School Teachers’ and Employees’ Mutual Aid Association Insurance
National Health Insurance is generally reserved for self-employed people and students, whereas social insurance is normally for corporate employees. National Health Insurance can be broken down into:
- National Health Insurance for each city, town or village
- National Health Insurance Union
Public health insurance covers most citizens/residents and the system pays 70% or more of medical and prescription drug costs with the remainder being covered by the patient (upper limits apply). The monthly insurance premium is paid per household and scaled to annual income. Supplementary private health insurance is available only to cover the co-payments or non-covered costs, and usually makes a fixed payment per days in hospital or per surgery performed, rather than per actual expenditure.
Read more about this topic: Health Care System In Japan
Famous quotes containing the word insurance:
“Women hock their jewels and their husbands’ insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“For there can be no whiter whiteness than this one:
An insurance man’s shirt on its morning run.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Before I get through with you, you will have a clear case for divorce and so will my wife. Now, the first thing to do is arrange for a settlement. You take the children, your husband takes the house, Junior burns down the house, you take the insurance and I take you!”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Arthur Sheekman, Will Johnstone, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Monkey Business, terms for a divorce settlement proposed while trying to woo Lucille Briggs (Thelma Todd)