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, 30. ISSN 2212-828X

Text (1-s2.0-S2212828X25000052-main) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (541kB)

• Scopus publication

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. A central policy issue under consideration involves assessing the demand and the costs of various long-term care options while evaluating its financial sustainability. 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 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 alternative funding mechanisms and discuss the main benefits and drawbacks considering each country's unique institutional constraints. Our estimates indicate that, while all seventeen LAC countries have the potential to implement a system funded through general taxation, a social insurance system is only feasible in a handful set of LAC countries.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
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:	24 Mar 2025 17:21
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127121

Actions (login required)

View Item