There are some things in life whose relative value highly depends on your expectations. And one of those things for foreigners living in Japan is the Japanese health care system.
On this segment from the Unseen Japan Live! show, co-host Sachiko Ishikawa and I discuss how talking to a diverse, international audience on Twitter has challenged some of our assumptions. And we discuss how Japanese health care, for many in Europe and other parts of the world, comes off as something of a step down.
Sachiko also tells about the time she was in a hospital in Japan and needed cash – an episode that ended up being quite an adventure. From there, we wandered into a discussion about cashless technologies in Japan, what has and hasn’t changed, and who does – and doesn’t – have access to this evolving technology.
This talk is taken from our monthly Crowdcast show, Unseen Japan Live!. Check out our dashboard for upcoming shows and join us!
Notable Quotes
Jay on American Exceptionalism (The Bad Kind)
“In many ways – in health care, social safety nets, and a collective, help-each-other, Love-Thy-Neighbor sort of culture, the US is actually unique in the world – and not in a good way.”
Sachiko on Sticker Shock
“For me, the first time I had to go to a hospital and I had to pay…they billed me and I was like, ‘I pay taxes for this!'”
Sachiko on the ATM Search
“I realized I needed cash [to pay the hospital]. So then I was wobbling around the hospital looking for an ATM machine. And they told me, oh you have to leave the hospital and there’s a convenience store around the corner. But I was in my pajamas when that happened. And I was ill. So I was like, ‘That convenience store is SO far away.'”
Note: Per her comment on the video, Sachiko went into greater detail about her ordeal in this Twitter thread.
Other Reading
Some articles on Unseen Japan related to what we discussed in this episode:
Doc: Women in Japan Can’t Be Trusted with Morning After Pill
A medical controversy in Japan that flared up recently. Touches on the issue of how insurance doesn’t adequately cover female contraception compared to some other countries.
Cashless Payments in Japan Accelerate – and May Doom the One Yen Coin
Related to our discussion of Japan’s heavy dependence on cash (~8 minute mark)
