Financing Long-Term Care The Growing Dilemma

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Abstract
The financing of long-term care is one of the largest and most vexing health care problems facing our society. The problem will be further exacerbated when the rate of growth in the number of persons needing long-term care is further accelerated by the graying of those in the "baby boom" generation. The current financing mechanism, which relies almost entirely on concurrent funding through either a means tested welfare program (Medicaid) or self-pay, is inequitable and inadequate even for our present needs. Despite the magnitude of the problem, only recently has sufficient attention been focused on finding alternatives to the current means of financing long-term care. The search for a solution has been hampered by multiple, and sometimes conflicting, policy and political considerations. After reviewing the demographic and social roots of our current dilemma and listing the major alternatives for financing long-term care, a series of basic principles and definitions are reviewed. These elements are meant to serve as guidelines to compare and evaluate the growing number of proposals which seek to create a more effective and equitable system for financing long-term care. Future articles in this section will detail some of the more promising approaches to the dilemma of financing long-term care.

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