Long term care arrangements for elderly persons with disabilities: private and public roles.
When private resources are defined broadly to include informal care as well as private expenditures, 73 percent of the elderly long term care population rely entirely on private resources for their care. The emphasis of current programs on institutional care directs public resources toward those with more serious disability and less family to care for them. Among those with four or five disabilities in ADLS, 35 percent of those without a spouse or children currently receive no public support, compared with nearly 80 percent of those with both a spouse and children. Thus, even if restricted to seriously disabled persons, a new program expanding public long term care financing would increase eligibility for public benefits disproportionately among those with greater informal care resources.
Center for Intramural Research, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Rockville, MD 20852.
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Spillman
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Kemper
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003625:Data Collection; D004608:Eligibility Determination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005382:Financing, Personal / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016330:Frail Elderly / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007326:Institutionalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States