The government plans to drastically expand the scope of exceptions to the ban on so-called mixed medical treatment, which is defined as a combination of medical practices covered by public health insurance with those that are not, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The plan will be included in the government’s new growth strategy. According to the outline, the government also will extensively discuss tax laws concerning women with an eye to reviewing the tax deduction system for spouses. The aim is to reduce the burden of income and resident taxes on taxpayers with spouses in order to encourage more women to join the workforce.

The government will compile a new growth strategy in late June.

Mixed medical treatments are banned in principle because they could lead to a spread of medical treatments of dubious efficacy or safety. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry currently allows only 17 categories of medical treatments or options as exceptions to the ban—seven of which national health insurance may cover in the future, and 10 of which patients can take if they wish to do so, such as choosing the type of room they use.

Several problems have been pointed out with mixed treatments, such as the fact that it takes several months or more to go through a screening for taking the treatments.

With the situation in mind, the outline proposes drastically expanding the scope of exceptions to the ban on mixed treatments. It also stipulates a plan to establish an evaluation organization specialized in conducting screening for regenerative medical treatments and other treatments.

Meanwhile, the government’s Regulatory Reform Council has proposed a system to make mixed treatments available to patients even at nearby medical institutions if they reach an agreement with doctors. Concerning the plan, the government delayed making a decision until further adjustments are made with the health ministry.

Aiming to promote women’s active participation in the workforce based on the nation’s low birthrate and aging population, the outline states the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy will decide how it will review the current tax and social security systems as well as spousal allowances to help equalize working styles by year-end.

It also set a goal to raise the percentage of women in leadership positions to 30 percent by 2020 from 7.5 percent in 2013.

Concerning easing employment regulations, for which the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), New Komeito and others have expressed concern, the outline sets several policies as items to study, including introducing a system under which workers will be evaluated based not on the length of working hours but on their achievements, and expanding diversified regular workers, whose job descriptions are limited.

The outline sets goals to double the size of the nation’s robot market in the field of manufacturing by 2020, and boost it twentyfold in service and agricultural sectors, while revealing a plan to hold a “Robot Olympics.”

In agriculture, the outline mentions reviewing agricultural committees set up in municipalities, corporate bodies that can own farmlands and agricultural cooperatives, but it does not stipulate details of the plan.

The issue of lowering corporate taxes was not included in the outline because the government and the ruling parties are facing difficulties making internal adjustments of the issue.