Cultural Evaluation
If a comparison of the United States and Japan was done on mandatory health care for college students the comparison between these two countries would be quite different at this time. In the United States there are pros and cons to debate on whether a college student should be forced to carry health insurance. In Japan they have no choice but to carry health insurance.
In the United States the whole mandatory health insurance issue for college students can be argued with “the United States is a free country and students have the right to choose.” Looking at it from this standpoint one has to think that every student that is a United States citizen at the age of 18 should have the right to decide if they want to carry health insurance or not.
In Japan college students are enrolled in the Japanese National Health Insurance plan, also known as NHI. This plan is part of a Universal Japanese health care plan and all students are automatically enrolled in it as well as other individuals whose employers do not offer insurance. With this plan 70 percent of their health care is paid for. Japanese college students do not have the option to argue whether they want to carry health insurance or not. These same students are required to go for an annual checkup while attending college unlike the students in the United States.
The annual insurance fee for Japanese students under the NHI is $110.00 a year compared to some universities in the United States which average $371 a semester. An even bigger bonus to the Japanese students is for students attending a private university in Japan even though they are required to carry the NHI private universities use a service known as Mutual Union All which reimburses 80 percent of a student’s medical expenses that were not covered by NHI. (Pugin, 2009)
Another big difference between the two countries and