Review of Austria's long-term care system

Austria is the most typical country in European Union that relies mainly on cash allowance for the elderly. The design of Austria's system respects the insured's right to choose the service providers, supports informal care service providers, and emphasizes limited government responsibility and Bismarck tradition. This model provides sufficient support to informal nursing staff such as family members, activates the role of the family. However, even with subsidies, residents' ability to pay for formal care services is still insufficient. Subsidies are pan-national and the proportion of people enjoying them is too high. The burden of social assistance is still too heavy. Therefore, the biggest disadvantage of nursing allowance is its failure to guide the development of the nursing service market, which is not in line with the situation of insufficient development of our country's nursing service market. At the same time, cash treatment such as nursing allowance is especially suitable for the situation where the formal nursing service market is underdeveloped and the service supply is insufficient. However, it is difficult to ensure the use of money in cash allowance, misappropriation and other moral hazard problems are serious, and excessive identification has become a new problem.