Japan's Long-Term Care Insurance System for the Elderly and Thailand’s Direction

Abstract

Currently, the number of elderly people around the world is increasing. In Asia, Japan and Thailand have also seen an increase in the number of elderly people. However, when economic and social conditions change and the number of elderly people increases, resulting in problems of caring for the elderly. As a result of such problems, Japan has adopted a long-term care insurance system for the elderly. In Thailand, the number of elderly people is increasing. This article describes Japan's long-term care insurance system for the elderly and analyze Thailand’s direction regarding the system.  Apparently, Japan's long-term care insurance system for the elderly has clearly defined rules in various issues, such as executives dealing with long-term insurance for the elderly or insurers, those who are entitled to purchase long-term protection insurance for the elderly, rates and methods for collecting long-term insurance for the elderly, beneficiary, and long-term protection insurance amount for senior citizens, steps of enrolling into long-term insurance coverage for the elderly, calculation of service charges and payment for elderly care services, elderly care provider, provision of insurance systems, and long-term care coverage for the elderly.  In Thailand, the Long-Term Care (LTC) system has been introduced, and there is a program called “Long Term Care System in Public Health for Dependent Elders.” However, Thailand still has issues to consider, such as insufficient budgets from the government to care for the elderly. In addition, Thailand does not have a law that directly applies to the long-term health insurance system for the elderly. Therefore, Thailand’s direction should be enacted a law, adopting various forms and criteria of Japan’s as a guideline for more efficient management of the elderly care system.