Photo/Illutration A device to read “maina hokensho” cards (My Number Cards that double as a health insurance card) is set up in a Tokyo hospital. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Japanese media outlets appeared to struggle to find suitable expressions to describe the complicated and confusing Dec. 2 transition to the “maina hokensho” system.

The day was meant to mark a milestone in the shift from the traditional “hokensho” health insurance card to the “maina hokensho” card (My Number Card that doubles as a health insurance card).

Yet headlines and articles across major outlets used an array of different expressions.

One could sense editors and reporters wracking their brains, describing the card’s use at medical institutions as “the general rule,” “the standard,” or entering “full swing.”

The reason none of these formulations can be stated with certainty is that two exceptions complicate the transition. Even without a maina hokensho card, an “eligibility certificate” can serve as a substitute.

And despite initial announcements, the government has now indicated that the supposedly expired conventional cards will be accepted until next spring. Faced with this, one cannot help but pause and ask: Is this truly a milestone?

A brand-new eligibility certificate arrived at my home the other day. It is almost identical to the traditional insurance card in both color and size. If this is the workaround, then simply extending the validity of the old cards should have been enough.

This perplexing state of affairs stems from the government’s rush to adopt My Number Cards while pressing the abolition of existing health insurance cards as a fixed, non-negotiable goal.

“Haste makes waste.” The current situation is a textbook example of the saying. We have been subjected to thoroughly “wasteful” inconvenience.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once observed that a nation cannot be built up like scaffolding or fitted together like a machine.

“Its growth is more like that of a plant or tree … no one should ever cut one down without planting another. It is very much easier and quicker to cut down trees than to grow them,” he said.

There are certainly people who find the maina hokensho card convenient. Yet its usage rate remains only 37 percent.

The old tree was cut down before the new system had time to take root, and now officials are frantically trying to graft branches onto the stump of the felled tree.

That, it seems, is the spectacle unfolding before us.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 3

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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