Policy-makers responsible for publicly-funded drug programmes face continual pressures between the demand to accommodate a steady stream of new and more effective drugs and the ongoing requirement to control costs. In the face of these pressures, a growing number of OECD countries are applying...

There is much interest in the Japanese health care system from the perspective of other OECD countries. The Japanese health care system appears to perform well. What explains this apparently good performance? This paper aims both to provide a description of how the Japanese health system works...