Improving home care sustainability in Ireland. Are user charges a promising option?
There are often concerns that population ageing will cause health and long-term care expenditures to grow uncontrollably. A key question facing decision-makers is what, if anything, can be done in response? In this report we consider whether user charges would improve the financial sustainability of home care in Ireland, a country which is ageing at a rate similar to other high income countries.
We find that user charges are an inefficient tool to try to reduce the home care financing gap. Evidence suggests that the revenues raised for home care through user charges are negligible in other high income countries ...
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