総研いのちとくらし

Institute of Nonprofit Health Care Cooperation (INHCC)

Mission

  1. To cooperate to protect health and wealth, human basic rights in by the power of non profit health care sector.
  2. To investigate on ideas and practices against market orientating trend.
  3. To develop community and neighborhood development of well- being.

Main task

  1. To investigate medical, welfare and social systems and their histories.
  2. To investigate ideas of non profit and cooperative organizations, especially their issues on control, management, labor, booking, legislations, tax regime.
  3. To organize investigators, scholars and practitioners who have concern on these fields.
  4. To accumulate information, documents and studies in the fields.

Main objects.

  1. To make alternatives for Japan's health care, welfare systems, by analyzing its policies and actual regime.
  2. To analyze ideology of new liberalism in order to change supremacy of market orienting economy.
  3. To make associative community respecting well-being of ordinary people.
  4. To develop the idea and the movement of non profit and cooperative sector.

Our challenge

The new century has started next to the troublesome century tinged by wars and peaces. In the last century, the challenge of democratic movements and nations' independent struggle contribute the progress of the history of humankind. The establishment of the basic human rights for all kind of race and nations was one of the biggest contributions of the last century.

At the beginning of the new century, however, we are facing other obstacle against the human nature, especially in the name of so called global standards, liberalization of public responsibility and inclination for the market orientating economy. For example, Japan's government addresses reducing of the budget for education and healthcare in the context of privatization of supply of public interest services. In a few years, Japanese government has changed their social, economic policies to make the nations or citizens burden much cost obligations, by introducing worsening health care and social service systems such as Old aged persons health insurance system, Old persons medical care system, Pension system, Disabled care system and so on. The long term recession and bad political management have made the economic difficulties of households. On the one hand, enormous debts by financial entities covers by the public funds, on the other hand, meaningless public construction policy have done insistently. The government apparently has applied the rich side economic policy.

Even though the state policy is not favorable to the ordinary citizens, many medical /health care institutions of non profit/ cooperative have struggled to improve conditions of its health care services to protect the quality of life of the public.

In Japan, the tradition of the democratic health care movement has over seventy years history, under a slogan of "Medical care without any discrimination" in order to protect life of working class. Min-Iren, Japanese Federation of Democratic Medical Institution, organized about 1,500 medical centers and 50 thousand staffs, has prepared to establish new institute to study and promote non profit health care movement in Japan. Under the slogan of "To empower human rights and to develop non profit cooperative sector especially in wellbeing service" , new institute as a unique non profit think tank in this field kicks off, gathering many practitioners, scholars and organizations to develop community health care services.