Increasing number of elderly in need will become bigger problem in future
As part of the national effort to defuse a demographic “time-bomb”, China is very likely to introduce compulsory long-term care insurance to cope with ever-increasing care needs, particularly for the elderly who have a difficult time living independently due to age, illness or disability, said a national political adviser.
Hu Xiaoyi, former viceminister of human resources and social security and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks on the sidelines of the ongoing two sessions.
China has an increasingly aging population coupled with surging chronic diseas- es, and “it’s the right time to introduce such a new social insurance program as a preemptive approach”, said Hu, now head of the China Social Insurance Association.
China has 150 million people aged 65 and older, with at least 40 million of them partially and fully disabled.
To leave such elderly people fully dependent on their children for long-term care is, in Hu's opinion, unrealistic.
“It has become a universal social problem facing all families and thus should be addressed with a package of resources including the individual family, the government and the entire society, or the social insurance,” he noted.
Currently, China has five social insurance programs — elderly care, health, unemployment, work injury and maternity. They are run by the government and premiums are paid by the individual and the employer on a compulsory basis.
Hu expected long-term care would be the sixth.
All families, whether or not in urgent need of care, should participate in the program to prepare for potential future challenges, he urged.
According to him, care under the program is more household-based and would sometimes require professional medical intervention.
Recipients should be categorized according to various levels of dependency, he added.
But he stressed that more testing and research are required to roll out the pro-