Uninsured In Japan: a medical trip report

An eye-opening account.

Most of you probably don’t know, but I have been living/working in Japan for the past 5 years. Over this period, I have been without health insurance for 4 of those years – I was put into the national healthcare plan when I came over as a high school teacher, and when I finished my contract the school canceled my coverage. I have not been to a doctor since that time, terrified of how much it would cost.

Today, I went in, insurance-less, to the doctor for the first time. In light of our problems back home, I felt I should share this with all of you here.

Read the whole thing here.

In case it’s too long, here’s the executive summary, courtesy of Reddit thread sums it up in the title: “Uninsured American living in Japan sees a doctor: “…when I get 3 prescriptions filled in 5 minutes and they are SORRY they have to charge me a whopping 30 bucks for it, and I see people back home paying many times that, I have to wonder how we’re managing to do things just this wrong.”