How Can We Improve Long-Term Care Financing?

Families and government spend $200 billion annually on long-term care (LTC), yet many elderly and disabled people still do not receive needed care. This brief illustrates the flaws of the current LTC finance system and presents three potential solutions and some challenges and advantages of each option. The proposed solutions are: enhance private insurance; base public financing on social insurance rather than welfare; or meld private and public insurance.