The Economics Of Care Of The Elderly

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

This paper deals with the costing of informal care, which is the unpaid help provided, in this instance, to an elderly person by relatives and friends. Economic appraisals of alternative ways of caring for elderly people have frequently been unable to cost this input although it has often been the major source of help for elderly people who are satisfactorily maintained at their home

The Economics of Aging presents results from an ongoing National Bureau of Economic Research project. Contributors consider the housing mobility and living arrangements of the elderly, their labor force participation and retirement, the economics of their health care, and their financial status. The goal of the research is to further our understanding both of the factors that determine the well-being of the elderly and of the consequences that follow from an increasingly older population with longer individual life spans. Each paper is accompanied by critical commentary.

Ensuring long-term care (LTC) is one of the most urgent problems in health care today. Demographic trends are expected to lead to a higher proportion of old and very old people in the global population. As a result, an increased proportion of global income will be devoted to LTC services. With this in mind, Long-term Care: Economic Issues and Policy Solutions aims to address the following important objectives: to provide a detailed analysis of the arrangements and institutions designed to protect the disabled and dependent elderly people in various countries, and to try to evaluate their respective merits. to discuss the projections of future costs of protection for dependent elderly, and to assess the impact of improvements in disability-free life expectancy on the future cost of care and choices between informal and formal care. to present empirical research on these decisions, with special consideration of primary caregivers, and on the substitution between in kind and cash benefits as well as between institutional (or formal) care and home (or informal) care. to analyze different theoretical approaches in modeling decisions referring to LTC services to be provided both within and between generations. With its mix of empirical, theoretical and policy-related contributions, Long-term Care: Economic Issues and Policy Solutions will be of interest not only to health economists, but also to social scientists, health insurers, and public policy advocates.

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

This report presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive cross-country assessment of long-term care (LTC) workers, the tasks they perform and the policies to address shortages in OECD countries. It highlights the importance of improving working conditions in the sector and making care work more attractive and shows that there is space to increase productivity by enhancing the use of technology, providing a better use of skills and investing in prevention.

This study reports on the latest trends in long-term care policies in nineteen OECD countries and studies lessons learned from countries that undertook major reforms over the past decade.

This book examines the legal and societal challenges facing ageing nations in Europe. With a focus on informal care, it poses the question of how, in light of historical and socio-demographic changes, we can take care of our elderly.