Reforming Long–term Care in Europe

The assistance given to older people to help with the essential activities of their daily lives is one of the key policy responsibilities undergoing an expansion of public converage. Given the extended life–spans of populations across Europe, this pertinent issue is now increasingly in the loop of political reform in all countries, including the UK, Spain, Germany and Sweden.

This book offers the most up–to–date analysis of the features and developments of long–term care in Europe. It focuses on countries that have been comparatively less studied, for example, Eastern Europe, Italy, France and Spain, and makes comparisons with reform practices in Germany, the UK, Netherlands and Sweden. Each chapter focuses on a key question in the policy debate in each country and offers a description and analysis of each system.

Editorial Introduction (Joan Costa–Font).

1. Long–term Care: A Suitable Case for Social Insurance (Nicholas Barr).

2. The Long Road to Universalism? Recent Developments in the Financing of Long–term Care in England (Adelina Comas–Herrera, Raphael Wittenberg and Linda Pickard).

3. Reforming Long–term Care Policy in France: Private Public Complementarities (Blanche Le Bihan and Claude Martin).

4. Sustainability of Comprehensive Universal Long–term Care Insurance in the Netherlands (Frederik T. Schut and Bernard van den Berg).

5. Social Insurance for Long–Term Care: An Evaluation of the German Model (Heinz Rothgang).

6. Long–term Care in Central and South–Eastern Europe: Challenges and Perspectives in Addressing a New Social Risk (August Österle).

7. Devolution, Diversity and Welfare Reform: Long–term Care in the Latin Rim (Joan Costa–Font).

8. One Uniform Welfare State or a Multitude of Welfare Municipalities? The Evolution of Local Variation in Swedish Elder Care (Gun–Britt Trydegård and Mats Thorslund).

9. Reforming Long–term Care in Portugal: Dealing with the Multidimensional Character of Quality (Silvina Santana).

Index.

Dr  Joan Costa–Font is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Policy and the European Institute, LSE. His area of expertise is the economic analysis of institutions, health, health care and ageing, with a particular focus on Europe and he is the author of The Economics of New Health Technologies (2009).