Japan’s national health insurance system provides Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and has delivered healthcare services at appropriate prices in an effective, efficient manner for almost 60 years. Its support has helped create one of the longest-lived, healthiest societies in the world. However, shifting demographics caused by decreasing birthrate and population aging are changing the healthcare environment and threatening its sustainability. In response, in September 2019, the government kicked off discussions that address various issues related to the pension, healthcare, and long-term care systems and working styles at the Planning Meeting on a Social Security System Oriented to All Generations to pursue sustainability in the social security system. Efforts to create a legislative proposal to be presented at an ordinary Diet session in 2020 are currently underway.

Starting in FY2016, Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) has been hosting discussions on rebalancing innovation and sustainability in healthcare systems. These discussions have addressed various topics such as the importance of predictability in drug pricing systems, the importance of transparent discussions with multi-stakeholders, the potential and limitations of Healthcare Technology Assessment (HTA), the state of medical data use and challenges facing it, the vitality of policies for promoting innovation, and methods for reducing wasteful spending and securing financial resources. In addition, in FY2019, we established an expert task force that included Professor Kazumasa Oguro. Based on discussions held at that task force, we will present an expert report giving an overview of the state of the healthcare system based on three themes: increasing healthy life-years and expanding focus beyond disease recovery, reducing waste in the healthcare system, and perceiving the costs of healthcare system reform as an investment in the future.

On that note, the upcoming HPGI seminar will feature Professor Oguro. In addition to being a member of the aforementioned task force, Professor Oguro is a member of the Faculty of Economics at Hosei University and is actively involved in research on social security at various research institutions.

In 2020, Professor Oguro published Rebuilding the Japanese Economy (Nikkei Publishing), which raised the alarm about silent threats related to population decline, low growth, and growing poverty. To address the topic of COVID-19, which is currently affecting the entire world, he has also provided many public statements concerning the effects of the disease on the Japanese economy.

Together with everyone in attendance, we would like to deepen our understanding of recent developments in discussions on social security reform, task force efforts, the effects of COVID-19 on Japan’s public finances and economy, and the mid-to-long-term effects of COVID-19 on social security.

■ Speaker
Dr. Kazumasa Oguro (Professor, Faculty of Economics, Hosei University)

■ Date and Time
Wednesday, June 17, 2020, 18:30-19:45

■ Venue
Zoom webinar.

■ Profile
Kazumasa Oguro
Professor Kazumasa Oguro belongs to the Hosei University Faculty of Economics. He was born in 1974 and graduated from the Faculty of Science at Kyoto University. He then attended the Graduate School of Economics at Hitotsubashi University, where he earned his Doctorate of Economics. After joining the Ministry of the Treasury (current the Ministry of Finance) in 1997, he served as Assistant Legal Examiner at the Minister’s Secretariat Documentation Division; Deputy Director-General of the Monitoring Division at the Bureau of Customs; Senior Researcher at the Ministry of Finance Policy Research Institute; and Associate Professor at Hitotsubashi University’s Institute of Economic Research. He assumed his current position in April 2015. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Ministry of Finance Policy Research Institute and a Consulting Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (RIETI). He is also a member of the Cabinet Secretariat’s Innovative Business Activity Evaluation Committee; a special investigator of the Board of Audit of Japan; Executive Director at the Kajima Institute of International Peace; Director at the Institute for New Era Strategy (INES); and Senior Researcher at the Canon Institute for Global Studies. He specializes in public economics.