Funding options for long-term care services in Latin America and the Caribbean

Fabiani, Beatrice, Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919, Aranco, Natalia, Stampini, Marco and Ibarrarán, Pablo (2025) Funding options for long-term care services in Latin America and the Caribbean. Journal of the Economics of Ageing. ISSN 2212-828X (In Press)

Text (FiscalStudiesLTCLACfinal) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (1MB)

Abstract

Demographic and social changes Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have called the traditional system of long-term care service provision into question, prompting many countries to prioritize long-term care reform on their social policy and fiscal agendas. One of the issues at hand is determining the expected service costs as well as the financial viability and sustainability of various funding options. To date, estimating the demand for care in Latin American countries is limited due to the underdeveloped and fragmented systems in place. This paper estimates the potential cost of various long-term care service packages that differ in terms of the extent and type of government funding. Second, we investigate the financing sustainability of different coverage scenarios across seventeen countries in the LAC region. Finally, we assess the feasibility of various funding mechanisms and discuss the main benefits and drawbacks considering each country's unique constraints. Our estimates indicate that, while all seventeen LAC countries have the potential to implement a LAC system based on general taxation, a social insurance system is only feasible in a handful set of countries.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance H Social Sciences H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification:	H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H50 - General I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J14 - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J18 - Public Policy O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O54 - Latin America; Caribbean
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2025 16:03
Last Modified:	29 Jan 2025 16:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127121

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