ABSTRACT

In recent years, governments in rapidly aging countries have looked toward the implementation of public insurance schemes to help cover the costs of care for their aging citizenry. This article presents a comprehensive overview of long-term care insurance policy in Singapore. We discuss the successes and challenges of nearly two decades (2002–2019) of policy experimentation with a voluntary long-term care insurance scheme, which was replaced by mandatory social insurance in the 2019 reform. Various aspects of the new scheme, including mode of financing, eligibility criteria, benefit design, and potential impacts are assessed. The article concludes that, in the inherent tension between the breadth and depth of public long-term care social insurance coverage, Singapore has opted for breadth at the expense of depth.

摘要

近年来，快速老龄化国家的政府一直在寻求实施公共保险计划，以帮助支付老年公民的护理费用。本文全面概述了新加坡的长期护理保险政策。我们讨论了近二十年（2002-2019）政策试验的成功和挑战，自愿长期护理保险计划在 2019 年的改革中被强制性社会保险取代。评估了新计划的各个方面，包括融资模式、资格标准、福利设计和潜在影响。文章的结论是，在公共长期护理社会保险覆盖的广度和深度之间的内在张力中，新加坡选择了以牺牲深度为代价的广度。