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On May 21, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the sixth meeting in 2018 of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
At the meeting, there were intensive discussion on monetary policy, commodity prices, and other issues, and relevant deliberations on  the Integrated Economic and Fiscal Reforms such as social security, incentive reforms, visualization, horizontal roll-outs, and other issues.
 
Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
“Today, based on the recent Monetary Policy Meeting of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), we first reviewed the state of macroeconomic management, including monetary policy..
 
The Government and the BOJ have already confirmed that we will firmly uphold the joint statement (on Overcoming Deflation and Achieving Sustainable Economic Growth)..
 
During today’s discussion, private sector members shared their evaluation that the policy management plan of the BOJ is appropriate. I hope that the BOJ will continuously make efforts to achieve the price stability target in line with the joint statement.
 
Second, along with the future outlook for the social security system towards 2040,we articulated regional gaps in medical care from a variety of perspectives.
 
By 2025, the entire baby boomer generation will be aged 75 or older; it is expected that needs of medical and nursing care will change significantly. By that time, we must ensure that any patients have the access to appropriate medical and nursing care in their communities..
 
To that end, the formulation of the Community Health Care Visions, which outline the future vision of the designated prefectures, is the first important step. This was completed without delay in every prefecture as of March of last year.
 
The next important step is to formulate plans for each medical institution to achieve the target number of beds by functions of health care by 2025. With respect to this, intensive discussions are being held in the respective areas during the two-year period of FY2017 and FY2018. Accordingly, FY2018 is an extremely important year for the steady implementation of the regional medical frameworks.
 
For that reason, I would like the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare to submit an interim report on the preparation of the plans across the country by this autumn, and to support the formulation before the end of this fiscal year, including horizontal roll-outs of best practices.
 
Furthermore, in order to ensure the steady transition of hospital bed functions and the conversion to Integrated Facility for Medical and Long-term Care toward the realization of the Community Health Care Vision in 2025, I would like this Council to examine the impact and costs of the measures that have been promoted to date, including funding for regional medical and nursing care,  revisions of medical fees and other measures. At the same time, I would like the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare to lead the discussion and implementation of additional effective measures, while consulting with experts.”