Research On Supply And Demand Of Long-term Care Insurance In China

The trend of aging population is an inevitable stage in the process of social and economic development.Due to the huge population base and the rapid growth of the aging population in China,the problem of aging population has become increasingly prominent with our country entering the aging society.However,the relative natural fertility rate of the population has been declining year by year,which has led to a tendency of the miniaturization of family size.The traditional family with multiple children has gradually transformed into a child-centered family,which presents an“inverted pyramid”structure.Against the background of accelerating industrialization and urbanization,the traditional family nursing mode can no longer meet the long-term care needs of the disabled elderly.Besides,the soaring prices have also led to a surge in medical expenses as well as the increasing demands for long-term care,which has also brought a heavy burden to the society and the family.For these reasons,long-term care insurance(LTCI)came into being.At present,there are two operating models of LTCI in China,which includes long-term social care insurance and long-term commercial care insurance.Long-term social care insurance is still in the pilot stage.According to the implementation of the long-term social care insurance in the pilot districts,some achievements have been made in various places.However,the lack of the long-term effective financing model for sustainable development and the difference of the standard of nursing assessment as well as the level of payment make it difficult to form an organic integration of the “medical treatment”“nursing” and “maintenance”,which is not conducive to the promotion and implementation of long-term care insurance.Although the long-term commercial care insurance started early,few people showed interests in the related commercial care insurance products as they launched into the market.As a result,the whole market of long-term care insurance products has been sluggish for a long time,and has been unable to make ideal achievements for past 16 years.However,on one hand,there exists a huge potential demand for the long-term care.On the other,long-term care insurance also faces the dilemma of insufficient effective demands.Therefore,how to break through the obstacles between them and then turn the balance are the keys to the development of the long-term care insurance.Based on the related theories of economics and management,this paper analyzes the developing status of long-term commercial care insurance in China and deficiencies of it from the perspective of supply and demand on the basis of combining with the attributes of long-term care insurance.At the same time,this paper also analyzes and appraises the operations of this insurance product in some pilot districts in China.Taking it as a starting point,this paper puts forward some policy suggestions by learning from the experience of foreign developed countries,which I hope is helpful to the practice.