Hiroyuki Today: National Health Insurance is “a fine paid by healthy workers”

On December 26, businessman Hiroyuki Hiroyuki updated his Twitter page.

The fine that healthy workers in Japan pay is going to go up again.

　The “fine” that Hiroyuki refers to is the national health insurance premium.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare plans to raise the ceiling on “national health insurance premiums” by another 20,000 yen from April 2023.

　The tweet quoted from this article was posted at the beginning of this article.

　Due to the increase in medical expenses caused by the aging of the population, the maximum amount of national health insurance premiums was raised by 30,000 yen in FY2022.

The government has decided to raise it by another 20,000 yen to 870,000 yen per year in FY2023.

For those aged 40-64 who also pay long-term care insurance premiums, the maximum amount will be 1,040,000 yen.

　National Health Insurance is designed for self-employed people who are not covered by company health insurance (i.e., social insurance), and premiums are calculated based on the previous year’s income.

As income rises, so does the burden of premiums. While social insurance premiums are split equally between the subscriber and the business (company), the subscriber bears the entire cost of the National Health Insurance premiums. Therefore, the burden is very high.

　That is not the only reason why National Health Insurance premiums are so high.

　According to data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the average age of National Health Insurance enrollees is 53.6 years old.

The percentage of those aged 65-74 is 43.6% (FY 2019. The percentage of those aged 65-74 is 43.6% (FY 2019; same below). In contrast, the average age of those enrolled in the social insurance program “Kyokai Kenpo” is 38.1 years old, and 7.7% are between 65 and 74 years old.

The average age for the Union Health Insurance, also social insurance, is 35.2 years, with 3.4% of those aged 65-74.

　The medical cost per enrollee is 379,000 yen for National Health Insurance, compared to 186,000 yen for the “Kyokai Kenpo” and 164,000 yen for the “Kumiai Kenko Hoken”, a difference of more than double.

　In other words, the National Health Insurance system requires a larger amount of money for medical expenses because of the large number of older people enrolled in the system.

Since the government is making people bear the cost of medical care based on their income regardless of their age, it is only natural that those who are healthy and do not incur much medical expense, especially the young, will feel the burden of this system.

　This is what Hiroyuki calls a “fine.

　In addition, insurance premiums have continued to rise year after year, with national health insurance premiums swelling an average of 1.6 times over the past 30 years.

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