Health cost review to benefit elderly

By: Unknown Author
Asahi Shinbun, August 21, 2002

Beginning October, individuals aged 70 or over who earn less than 4.5 million yen a year and elderly couples with an annual income of less than 6.37 million yen will shoulder only 10 percent of their health costs.

The new criteria, announced Monday by the health ministry, marks a change from legislation passed in late July and due to take effect in October which will require elderly people to foot 10 percent of medical bills while those with a higher income will pay 20 percent.

Under the legislation, people aged 70 or over with an annual taxable income of more than 1.24 million yen-amounting to about 6.3 million yen in gross income for a couple or 3.8 million yen gross for an individual-will be required to pay the higher amount.

But some Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers argued that an individual's taxable income could total more than 1.24 million yen even though the person's annual income was less than 6.3 million yen.

Elderly people with an annual taxable income of more than 1.24 million yen, and salaried workers aged between 70 and 74 who earn more than 280,000 yen a month and have health insurance, must still pay 20 percent of their costs unless they are excluded under the new criteria.

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