Revision of Act for Handicapped People	No.619 January 27, 2009
		The law called Act to Support Independent Life of the Handicapped requests those with physical and mental difficulties to pay for public services rendered to them on the ground that disadvantages should be solved by personal efforts. It was fully implemented in October, 2006, and will be amended after three years. A draft bill for revision will be presented to the Diet in the beginning of March, but the pay-for-service rule is likely to remain intact STOP RULE OF PAY-FOR-SERVICES! COMPILE BUDGET FOR BETTER ASSISTANCE! Litigations Filed On October 31 last year in total 29 plaintiffs of 8 prefectures filed suits before the eight district courts against the state and municipalities for violation of Constitution: they claim that obligatory payment of 10% fare of the welfare services given pursuant to the law violates Constitution and deny the rights of survival for people with physical and mental difficulties. The complainants demand abolition of this payment system. ‘We have meals, go to toilet and walk in the street. That is a life as everyone leads. A person with physical impediments has the right to receive necessary social aids. Does the law assure welfare services?’ This is the point for revision of the law. The law imposed on every handicapped user to pay 10% of the public assistance received, disregarding the income. The principle has changed from a rule of proportional payment in accordance with individuals’ income to a flat payment basis. The new step affects more heavily on those who have severer disabilities. During the Koizumi administration the coalition government of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito took advantage of the majority in the Diet to enact the controversial law, neglecting desperate voices of the handicapped. His government boasted that ‘drastic reforms necessarily accompanied pains’; the law represents a typical example. The major purpose of the administration was to reduce budgets for social services. Consequently, handicapped people have more difficulties to access to necessary help to survive and many of their workplaces have gone bankrupted or almost shut down. The handicapped face now tougher conditions as the law undermines the very foundations for survival. Technical Revisions Are Not Enough The government has reduced the fares in two occasions, responding to the serious demands of the handicapped, their families and welfare facilities, but the recipients still have to endure the money burden. They had no choice but to file a suit to withdraw the rule of pay-for-service. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, however, submitted in December last year to the Department of Policies for the Handicapped of the Social Service Council a revised text for the law in which it asserted that ‘the government will make necessary revisions, maintaining the policy to alleviate users’ burden carried out twice in the past years’. The government is not intended to alter the principle of pay-for-service, insisting that ‘the law, when amended, will rely to a greater extent on the rule of a proportional payment’, referring to the small reductions made. The government escapes from the core problem. Obviously, it will not solve the issue but work on technical revisions. The stance itself discloses the lies told by the government which has repeatedly announced to make ‘radical changes’.