From the Japan Times:
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso caused a stir Monday in talks on social security reforms when he said the medical system should be changed so that the many terminal patients now using “government money” for expensive treatment “can quickly pass away.”
This was a personal statement, not a government position (apparently), but unpleasant as it sounds, it seems pretty much inevitable… and more or less sensible. If you are being kept alive on someone else’s money, and the money runs out, it’s not at all clear to me that there are really many options.
A market-driven system where patients pay for their own treatment would lead to competing companies trying to produce increasingly inexpensive and powerful treatments, in order to get your money. With a single-payer system, there’s little drive to innovate for improvement, and none at all to reduce cost in techniques and technologies. So cost must be saved by simply rationing care and pulling plugs.