Japan probing abuse of health insurance system by foreign residents

The Japanese government has begun a nationwide probe into foreign residents exploiting the country's public health insurance system, according to sources familiar with the matter.The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is checking with municipalities to investigate cases involving foreigners who joined public insurance by illegitimately obtaining residential status partly to skirt paying costly medical fees, the sources said.The ministry will compile the findings of the survey in fall and discuss steps to prevent such abuse of the insurance system, which was not designed to take into account…READ FULL ARTICLE