Current Status of Long-term Care in Taiwan: Transition of Long-term Care Plan From 1.0 to 2.0

Population aging is an issue that all developed countries in the world are facing today. In 1993, Taiwan officially entered the aging society and fertility rate has been less than 2 since 1985, and trending less than 1.5 in the past decade. The situation of having fewer children was getting severe, so that our number of members per household has dropped from 3.57 to 2.70 in the past 20 years. By 2018, Taiwan has became an aged society. Therefore, Taiwan government needed to prepare the responses to the challenges brought out by the rapid population aging. At first, let us take an overview of the development of long-term care (LTC) policy in Taiwan. Since 2007, the Central Government has been establishing LTC service policies1. Taiwan government launched the LTC 10-year plan version 1 (LTC 1.0)2 in 2007. The Long-term Care Services Act was passed-by in June of 2015. This Act provides the legislative base of constructing LTC services system. Although the LTC 1.0 has performed well, Taiwan government found that adjustments were needed to fit the needs of the public better, therefore, in 2016, passed the LTC plan version 2.0 (LTC 2.0). As to the current status of the LTC Insurance Law Draft3,4: the draft was sent into Legislative Yuan twice, but it was withdrawn after President Tsai took office. The bill was tackled mainly due to the issue of worker shortage and inadequate supply of services.