Finance Minister Taro Aso has been shooting his mouth off again. Tokyo Shimbun reports that at a recent “meeting” he said it “wasn’t fair” that the country had to pay for the medical costs of people who “eat as much as they want and drink as much as they want and then end up with diabetes.”

Japan’s national health insurance does not discriminate between people who maintain good health and those who don’t. You pay according to your income. “Of course, if you have an inherent weakness, that’s another story,” Aso added, obviously recognizing that some people will take offense at his opinion.

But apparently it’s something he’s thought about a lot. The Asahi Shimbun reports that during opening remarks at a Lower House “party” of some kind Aso said, “I think we should make an incentive for people who are making an effort to stay healthy.”

The government is trying to reduce medical costs, and he believes if someone over, say, 70 continually foregoes treatment for minor complaints that person should be rewarded. “Maybe give them ¥100,000 in cash,” Aso suggested. Then, those people who think they might as well go to the hospital for something small will think twice.

This idea has been floated before, but doctors’ groups, which would suffer financially from such a change in the public mindset, have protested, saying that discouraging people from seeking medical advice for anything is tantamount to killing them.

Aso claims that the average medical cost for a person over 70 is a million yen a year. We couldn’t corroborate that statistic, but fellow Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Taro Kono, in his email newsletter, said that the average Japanese person costs the government ¥24 million in health care during his/her lifetime — paid for through both insurance premiums and taxes — and that 49 percent of all medical outlays are spent on persons 70 and over.

Then we thought of our own situation. We’ve been paying into the national health insurance scheme for 26 years and reckon we’ve spent almost ¥10 million. We can also count on the fingers of one hand how many times we’ve actually gone to the doctor in those 26 years for something that falls under our coverage, so obviously we aren’t getting our money’s worth — so far.

Tags: national health insurance, Taro Aso

Yen for Living is produced by Philip Brasor, a freelance writer-for-hire, and Masako Tsubuku, a freelance translator and interpreter. They are currently working together on a book about Japanese housing that will probably never be finished. In the meantime they have their own blog on the subject: Cat Foreheads & Rabbit Hutches. You can read more by Philip at philipbrasor.com.