PINPIN KORORI

Japan and America are facing many of the same issues in terms of health care policy.  Both countries are grappling with the rising cost of health care.  According to Bloomberg:

Japan introduced an affordable health system in the 1960s to broaden access to acute care when tuberculosis was the nation’s top killer. Cancer and cardiovascular disease now are the most common causes of death. Those are more complicated to treat, so the system is overloaded with patients and the cost to the government is escalating.

As the drain on national health care funds increases, so too do the benefits decrease for those who will need health care in the future.  In a nutshell: event though younger generations pay into funds like Social Security or national health care, when it comes time for them to reap the rewards of those contributions, there will no longer be enough to subsidize everyone's care.  In Japan, people born after 1955 will lose out on benefits.  In the United States, Social Security will be depleted by 2034.  

PUTTING A FACE ON THE ISSUES

Last week Bloomberg published an interesting piece on elderly care in Japan. It explores the ethics and economics of aging through the story of one woman, Hisako Miyake, who is now 96 years old. Miyake is bedridden and has a feeding tube surgically inserted into her stomach to keep her alive. She also has dementia, and made no record of her wishes concerning her care prior to her deterioration.  Her granddaughter, who wrote the article, is one of millions who will lose out on health care benefits when it's her turn to cash in.

With more people living decades past the traditional limits of life expectancy, families and medical professionals are having to weigh prolonging patients' lives against their quality of life. Quality of life is a frequent refrain when discussing end-of-life issues; however, this article also brings up quality of death, or allowing people to pass with dignity and without pain. More and more Japanese people express a desire for pinpin korori, defined as living "long, healthy lives and to die naturally without suffering from illness." The question is, is it possible to avert suffering if drastic measures (e.g., the surgical insertion of feeding tubes) are being implemented to keep people alive?