Abstract
Despite the fact that Japan is now rapidly facing the aging of society, the reform for the sustainable health system has not yet been realized, nor has that for the pension system. In the four chapters that comprise this paper, we consider Japanese health reform from the view point of patients/people. Firstly, we begin to consider why it is necessary to reform the health system urgently by forecasting future health expenditure. Secondly, we point out that too many medical regulations and powerful interest groups prevent urgent reform. Thirdly, the outline of our reform is aiming at introducing information technology to the field of the health market for the purpose of bridging the information gap between doctors and patients and recovering the role of insurer. Lastly, our concrete plan of the reform is proposed which would enable insurers to have a lot of information through transforming the patient chart to digital data and to get a countervailing power against the hospitals, for the purpose of improving the quality and efficiency of the Japanese health service, in addition to the deregulation lation of the health market. Concerning to the most outstanding problem of the health system for the elderly, we are also proposing a system of mutual aid between generations and the creation of a nationwide consensus on terminal care.
