Public Long -Term Care Insurance System
While the development of the service infrastructure progressed based on the Gold Plan,
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we were faced with the challenge of deciding how to share the burden of the rapidly increasing
long-term care expenses in the society. The answer is the public long-term care insurance system.
The major factors in the introduction of the public long-term care insurance system were:
1. The need to ensure a stable revenue source. Since the launch of the Gold Plan,
general tax revenue has been used to fund the development of an infrastructure for welfare-related
long-term care services under the welfare system for the aged, and insurance funds have been used
to fund the infrastructure development for medical care- related long-term care services under the
medical care insurance system. However, it was anticipated that ensuring the necessary financial
resources to meet the needs of the future increase in an aging population would be difficult,
because neither of these systems focus on long-term care. People became more aware that a stable
financial source had to be secured for the future, while the issue of elder care was one of the most
worrisome factors in post-retirement life8
.