They did make appointments in this story. And the door to door service is nothing to do with developed or developing or being outdated. It's the type of service that people prefer or benefit the most.
Hope you aren't from the states
Door to door service is not equal to door to door salesmen. They are totally two different things. Door to door salesman that I am talking about is where these sales people go visit individual houses to offer their products and make sales pitch. Usually, in East / SE Asia, these people sell health-care products or Multi level marketing products. These people never make any appointment before hand with the potential consumers. Consumers are not willingly opt for this service since they even have no idea about the company/products before these people come into their house. So when they got the chance to make the pitch, they are very pushy. The salespeople that made appointment first, usually only those from banks or insurance company. The problem is it is inefficient to use these salespeople to make direct sales pitch to consumers. On top of that, various issues with violating consumers' privacy and ethical issues since they are often very rude and pushy. I am from SE Asia and I barely see them anymore in the past 10 years.
Though insurance is mandatory by law in Japan, there is no penalty for it if you don't get one. That is why is it is necessary that there are employed people who go the extra mile to explain and convince people to have an insurence coverage that suits them as they are supposed to pay 30% of their cost. I think any system has it pros and cons and it depends on how you apply it in your country. In Japan, they are extra careful not to violate the law or ethics (which must have been clear after reading the story). Perhaps it is due to this "not going to wait till you come to us" policy is what ranks Japan higher in it's healthcare (including insurance coverage) compared to many other countries in the world.
Minna!, thank you for the information. It's good to know these bits of information about different countries.
It is kinda weird that door-to-door salesman still exists in a very developed country like Japan. I thought no one does that anymore these days since it is very outdated. The only ones still around are perhaps credit card or insurance salesmen. Even so, they usually make an appointment with you, not just knock on people's door and expected to be given time.