ABSTRACT
The population of Western industrialized countries aged over 65 has steadily increased. Especially rapid growth has been observed in the numbers of the very old - those over 80 years of age. The positive relationship between health care expenditure and age may be interpreted differently. The growing number of old people will have particularly important implications for the health care sector. Most health care involves medical services delivered by trained professionals with the objective of restoring a patient’s health. Long-term care (LTC) services can be and often are provided by persons with no or limited training. Increasing scarcity of public funds may well force them to re-evaluate the voucher alternative in the future, not only in LTC but in public health care and education as well. The financing of LTC may be prone to market failure due to moral hazard and adverse selection in the market for LTC insurance.
