Recent data show wide disparity between Japan and the United States in the effectiveness of their health care systems. Japan spends close to the lowest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care among OECD countries, the United States spends the highest, yet life expectancies in...

This paper examines the trade-off between the length of treatment days and the units of service provided per day for elderly patients in the context of the initiative taken by the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan to discourage lengthy hospital treatment and/or stay by elderly patients. By...

Westernizing medicine -- Reacting to deteriorating health -- Improving people's health for war -- Reforming health care with the United States -- Achieving universal health insurance -- Consolidating universal health insurance -- Making universal health insurance survive -- Japanese health care...