Japan's health care cost challenge - The McKinsey Quarterly - Japan health care cost - Health Care

Japan’s health care system faces mounting costs that traditional financing mechanisms will not be able to meet.
We estimate that health care spending in Japan could double as a proportion of GDP within 30 years, with advances in medical technology, growing wealth, and demographic changes driving the increase.
Financing mechanisms such as copayments and government subsidies are limited in their ability to cover rising health care costs, while Japan’s unique system of health care makes finding alternative solutions challenging.
To overcome that challenge, policy makers should consider reforms in health care policies that would raise finances and limit costs, thus helping to close the gap.

Exhibit 1: Japan could begin to see a wide gap between the revenue its National Health Insurance (NHI) system takes in and the amount it spends.
Exhibit 2: Four factors will contribute to the surge in Japanese health care spending.
Exhibit 3: Any combination of existing revenue sources requires a drastic increase in at least one of them.
Exhibit 4: Japan’s use of voluntary payments is still very limited compared with other OECD countries.