Financing Long-Term Care: Ex-ante, Ex-post or Both?

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the heterogeneity in the public financing of long-term care (LTC), and the wide-ranging instruments in place to finance long-term care services. We distinguish and classify the institutional responses to the need for LTC financing as ex-ante (occurring prior to when the need arises, such as insurance) and ex-post (occurring after the need arises, such as public sector and family financing). Then we examine country-specific data to ascertain whether the two types of financing are complements or substitutes. Finally, we examine exploratory cross-national data on public expenditure determinants, specifically economic, demographic and social determinants. We show that although both ex-ante and ex-post mechanisms exist in all countries with advanced industrial economies and despite the fact that instruments are different across countries, ex-ante and ex-post instruments are largely substitutes for each other. Expenditure estimates to date indicate that the public financing of long-term care is highly sensitive to a country's income, ageing of the population, and the availability of informal caregiving.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 5104

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health ; National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General ; Demographic Economics: General
• Subject: long term care ; long term care expenditures ; long-term care insurance ; social insurance ; ex-ante funding ; ex-post funding

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Costa-i-Font, Joan ; Courbage, Christophe ; Swartz, Katherine
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/107290
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET