Elderly Care Insurance in Japan

1. Beginning of elderly care insurance in Japan Nowadays, many developed countries are all faced with a problem: aging of population, among which, Japanese is the country with the most serious aging in the world. The ones who were born during the baby boom in World War II will be 65 years old soon, so that the population of the elderly in Japan will increase rapidly. Meanwhile, the birth rate in Japan has continued to drop since from 1980s. The decreasing of birth rate and the increasing of elderly population give rise to the dropping of total population, and at the same time, the proportion of the population above 65 years old accounting for the total population goes up greatly. In the face of such problem, Japan attaches great importance to the coordination with the private enterprises on the infrastructure for home care and then carrying out expansion rapidly. Under such background, Care Insurance Law comes into being.
1.1 The road of elderly care insurance in Japan Care Insurance Law was issued on November 17th, 1997, and took effect on April 1st, 2000. The materialization of care insurance is marked by the social insurance review conference held in July 4th, 1995.In this conference, a written advice, mainly aiming at the problem the welfare of the elderly should rely on the insurance benefit, was put forward for the first time since the system of “all nationals join the insurance” had been carried out for 33 years. On April 22nd of 1996, the review conference of health benefits for the elderly finally passed Proposal on Establishing Care Insurance for the Elderly, and proposed to establish social insurance method that half of the care insurance is undertaken by the public expense. In September of 1996, “Million Citizens Committee Boosting Care Socialization” was established, which was the first time to be discussed and modified on the care insurance among the citizens. In November of 1996, Care Insurance Law, Care Insurance Implementation