Abstract
This special issue looks at the inconsistencies between law, regulation, and institutions on healthcare and promoting medical innovation, from the viewpoints of various professionals. First, this paper explains the factors fundamental to this issue. We then look at the agenda behind the promotion of medical innovations. The science and technology policy for medical sciences seeks to promote R&D, but the issue is that these innovations do not percolate to the general public, which is starved for access to latest medical care. Healthcare services inherently require more stringent safety standards, efficiency and equality-in-access. This paper discusses the economic characteristics of healthcare services, the contents and evaluative mechanisms of the national healthcare insurance system, the relationship between progress of medical technology and healthcare expenditure, the tradeoff between physical accessibility and economic accessibility to medical technology, and the inconsistencies between the science and technology policy for medical sciences and the healthcare policy.
