Updated Horizontal Inequity in Health Care Utilization in Japan: Comparisons with OECD Countries Using an Original Survey

We compare health care inequity in Japan with that in other OECD countries in 2002 and 2003. To overcome Japanese data problems, we conducted an original survey. Although some problems remain, we obtained internationally comparable results on health care inequity for Japan. We test the utilization measure by the number of outpatients, the number of days of inpatient utilization in the previous year, out-of-pocket payments in the previous year and other measures, such as a yes/no indicator for outpatient or inpatient utilization in a lifetime. The results show that there is no inequity in outpatient or inpatient utilization, but out-ofpocket payments show significant pro-rich inequity.