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The story
In August, a residential-type paid nursing home in Tokyo abruptly hiked its monthly fee from ¥100,000 to ¥300,000. Because the facility also houses patients with terminal cancer and intractable diseases, the news sent shockwaves through the community. On 5ch, defenders arguing “¥100,000 was too cheap to begin with” clashed with critics slamming the hike as “way too sudden.” The discussion soon expanded into land prices and labor costs in central Tokyo, and even the uncertain future of Japan’s social safety net for the elderly.
Aug 23 (Sun), 6:00 AM
The Asahi Shimbun
In August, a residential-type paid nursing home in Tokyo tripled its usage fee — from ¥100,000 a month to ¥300,000. The facility houses patients with terminal cancer and intractable diseases.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
CEO: "Guess I'll expense a Rolls-Royce now" *smirk*
It's normal that you can't get decent medical or nursing care in Tokyo at that price.
Labor and building costs are just too high here.
Honestly it's weirder that public facilities can operate within insurance-covered rates without subsidies from the local government or the state.
Care is billed separately. The ¥100k was just rent and management fees.
If you're caring for a bedridden family member at home, the local government only gives you ¥100k a *year* — and only if you actually apply for it.
It's just a studio room with a toilet and sink. ¥100k sounds about right to me.
This is what a country looks like once the social safety net Japanese people wanted disappears.
Meanwhile, medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US.
Scary stuff.
So this is the society the "Unification–LDP Alliance" is aiming for! (a 5ch nickname mocking the ruling party's alleged ties to the Unification Church)
Isn't this just for new residents? Sounds like they mainly take in terminal patients, so turnover must be brutal anyway.
This is the inflation-driven society everyone wanted. I told you we should've just stuck with deflation.
Apparently even if you build a luxury nursing home somewhere like Awa-Kamogawa in Chiba, the elderly residents end up leaving anyway.
Tokyo real estate costs should just get passed on in the price. Convenient locations everyone wants have to be expensive.
Sudden price hike → ordinary people can't afford to move in → society falls apart.
Expecting to be taken care of in old age is a spoiled mindset only the pampered Baby Boomer generation (団塊世代) still clings to.
Anyone from the Ice Age generation on down grew up in brutal conditions — we're already resigned to dying alone in a ditch.
At the very least, I'm not planning on getting care in Tokyo.
If you're paying ¥300k a month, sure, go ahead and park them out in the countryside. But anyone who can't even afford that — just don't bother coming.
Same goes for the countryside though.
Tokyo has a lot of resources, but way too many people on top of that. Depopulated areas have no resources at all. The suburbs of regional cities are the most livable option.
Well, not even sure I'll live that long, lol
Before worrying about my own future, it's my parents' situation first. I have to keep covering my parents' medical and nursing costs until they pass away. If you don't have that to worry about, I envy you.
Exactly. And that's precisely the age bracket that makes up the bulk of 5ch's users.
The National Pension (basic pension) is set to be cut by 30% by 2057.
Yeah. I don't want to be a burden on my kids who live far away. Whether you're married or living alone, if you get dementia and wander off onto the train tracks, that's more than just an "inconvenience" for everyone involved.
If I can solve it with money by going into a facility, I'll be grateful for that. I'm going to keep working hard while I still can and save up for old age.
Background and Key Points
Japan’s paid-nursing-home sector is split into different legal categories, and that distinction matters more than the posts let on. “Residential-type” (住宅型) paid homes like this one charge a monthly usage fee for rent, meals, and management, while the actual nursing and medical care is billed separately through the national Long-Term Care Insurance system (介護保険, kaigo hoken), which residents have paid into since age 40 and which caps their out-of-pocket share at 10–30%. That’s why several posters insisted ¥100,000 covered only “a room with a toilet and sink” — unlike public “tokuyo” facilities (特別養護老人ホーム), which have government-linked fee caps and subsidies, residential-type private homes are largely free to set and change their own rates, since land, construction, and staffing costs in central Tokyo are among the highest in the country.
The thread’s real fault line wasn’t whether ¥300,000 is reasonable in isolation — most posters conceded Tokyo care is expensive — but whether tripling the fee overnight for people who already live there, including terminal cancer and intractable-disease patients unable to easily relocate, is defensible “competitive pricing” or an abuse of a captive, vulnerable population. That’s distinct from the price-level debate and never got resolved.
What the thread never addressed is the legal backdrop: because residential-type homes fall outside the price-controlled public tier, Japan currently has no statutory cap on how much or how fast such fees can rise for existing residents, only general contract and consumer-protection law. Readers may assume “elder care” implies uniform, state-regulated pricing the way medical care itself is — it doesn’t, and this gap is precisely what’s exposed here.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Tokyo Nursing Home Triples Fees Overnight — CEO Calls It ‘Just Competitive Pricing’.”
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