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September 21, 1995

[SSJ: 303] RE Japan - Welfare Innovator?

From: John C Campbell
Posted Date: 1995/09/21

Thanks to Prof. Bosse for his account of German long-term care insurance, and to
Andrew for noting that I had mentioned that in my talk but it got eliminated in
the brief summary. To amplify slightly, my argument was not that Japan was first
in the field by inventing a brand-new idea. I do think it is significant that
this will be the first time that Japan has implemented a major social policy
that had not yet been proven and debugged by foreign experience.
Incidentally, Japan is somewhat more orginal in its programs to stimulate
employment of older people, though these are nowhere near as signficant as LTC
insurance.
To an American, the profound point here is that both the US and Japan face
similar problems of population aging. The current American response is "let's
quick get government out of any responsiblity for the problem so we won't have
to raise taxes"--witness Medicare/Medicaid reform. The Japanese response has
been "let's quickly get the government programs we need established so they will
be ready when the old-age population surges." It is true that in doing so, it
continous to rely mostly on ideas developed abroad--wish we would.

Approved by ssjmod at 12:00 AM