Evaluation of China’s long-term care insurance policies

• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1252817
• Publication Date: 2024-03-28T04:51:50Z
• Authors: Qiang Li; Yiwen Chen; Yongmei Zhang; Xue Liu
• Keywords: China; long-term care insurance; policy evaluation; value-based assessment; 03 medical and health sciences; Insurance, Long-Term Care; Policy; fact-based assessment; Humans; Disabled Persons; Public Health; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; 0305 other medical science; Aged

IntroductionIn response to the increasing demand for long-term care services for older people, the Chinese government has launched a pilot program for long-term care insurance (LTCI) since 2016. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of this program in China and provide recommendations for the future development and expansion of the LTCI system.MethodsWe developed a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess these LTCI policies implemented in all 49 pilot cities in China.ResultsBased on our evaluation, the average assessment score for the LTCI program across all pilot cities was 71.8 points, with scores ranging from 57.5 to 92.5 points in these cities. Furthermore, most of the pilot cities achieved higher scores in the fact-based assessment compared to the value-based assessment.DiscussionThe results suggested that the overall pilot effect regarding LTCI was favorable, but there were significant regional disparities. Moreover, in most of pilot cities, current LTCI policies were designed to alleviate both the financial burden and the burden of caring for people with disabilities that families faced. However, some challenges still remained, such as the lack of community and home-based care services, the need to expand the coverage of insurance, and the importance of diversifying funding sources.