In some cultures, especially Asian ones, senior care is a family affair. This is a great approach in some respects, and misses out on some crucial aspects in others. Having the love of a family surrounding you is uplifting and supportive, but it often misses out on making sure that knowledgeable quality care is given.
It may be of particular interest to note that recently, government officials from Taiwan met in the United States in order to completely start over with a new structure for providing long term senior care on a broader level. In the past, Taiwan has completely relied upon families to support older family members–just because that is the way that they’ve always done it. It’s an Asian custom, but again, just because that’s how they have done things in the past does not mean that it is the very best method that there is. The meeting was supposed to start from the ground up and provide a system to best care for the elderly where no system has ever existed before.
It’s an exciting prospect, when you think about it. A lot of problems that people have within the U.S. is bureaucratic. We often don’t give our loved ones the very best care because it is not possible. Either we can’t afford it, or our insurance policies won’t cover it, or we simply can’t figure out how to navigate the state website that lists all of our options. Imagine if all of those things were simplified! Every person in need would be able to get the very best senior care regardless of cost or location.
Obviously, this is not going to be completely possible for every individual out there. But there are a lot of things being done here within the U.S. that are striving to make access to high quality elder care much easier. For example, many policies now cover some form of in-home care. Hospice care has become more socially prominent and Medicare will now cover it in some instances. A lot of advances have been made, but all of them need to be done within the current framework of our country’s healthcare system, and that means that significant and lasting changes for the better will take time to implement.
For Taiwan, there’s a single payer system in place for health care right now, and they are leaning toward a single payer long term care program, too. This is a decent approach, but a more integrated method would help people on a wider scale. A single payer approach is fine for some, but the introduction of private long term care would create more depth and quality to the overall system–this is something that the United States excels within. In fact, you will often find that domestically, privately owned in-home care services and assisted living facilities are much better equipped to provide for more senior needs than public support systems are able to. Being able to start from the very beginning has some definite advantages for Taiwan, but they will need to consider many variables in order to provide the best for their elderly citizens.
Leave a Reply