Sunday, April 20, 2008

They tell me of an uncloudy day


Oh, finally, an April day without rain. Won't last though. Although Japan is the only country in the whole universe with four clearly distinct seasons, this year April reminds me of home. Rain, rain, and more rain....

Speaking of cloudy, I recently watched a US news program about healthcare outside of the US. Japan was included. The Japan segment opened with the immediately identifiable Japanese music (shamisen?) which one almost never hears in modern Tokyo and a shot of the talking head reporter in front of Shibuya station which looks nothing like most of Japan. A shallow sugar-coated examination of Japan's healthcare system followed. (Japan's system isn't bad, but it is likely to face huge problems as society ages.)

Perhaps there will be more details about this "report" later as sugar-coating myth-makers are a bit irritating. Especially irritating is that this report was supposed to give Americans an idea of how other countries handle healthcare and thus provide some useful information in the struggle to improve the U.S.' healthcare mess. More shallow half-truths are not what is needed. A hint of the possible future of Japan's healthcare system is here.

...it isn't universal at all. Only those who pay get in.

US taxpayers helped fund that report (public TV). Where is the nutty rightwing when you need it?

But it is Sunday and I am trying not to think of such things...

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