21 Aug 2017

Dr Naoko Muramatsu : funding aged care

From Nights, 7:12 pm on 21 August 2017
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As our population ages, we'll probably have to decide how we're going to fund the cost of putting our parents and aged parents in care.

Japan, which has one of the oldest populations in the world, tackled that in 2000.

It's called the Long Term Care Insurance scheme.

You start paying in aged 40, at aged 65, depending on whether you're dependent or not, you can start getting cover - regardless of how much money you have, or your children earn.

Dr Naoko Muramatsu is an associate professor of Community Health Services at the Public Health School at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She grew up in Japan, and she's been studying its aged care insurance scheme.