By NextBestFitCash benefit option for family caregivers
Families can take a smaller cash benefit to provide care themselves.
Cash option for family caregivers.
Review ledgerHow this path connects
This path
Cash benefit option for family caregivers
Concrete changes if chosen
What would actually have to change in law, agencies, payment rules, or systems.
- Offer a cash benefit for family caregivers
Effects
Each effect has its own page: the evidence, the case that it is or isn't a real cost, and whom it affects.
What it fixes
- Covering long-term care can pull unpaid family care into the paid system
Offering a smaller cash benefit for families to provide care themselves lowers costs and supports family care.
What it creates or worsens
- Makes performance and quality hard to oversee
Quality is hard to monitor when families receive cash to provide care themselves.
- Leaves unequal burdens on family caregivers
Relying on family-provided care with a cash benefit leaves a gendered caregiving burden.
Who's affected
Who gains
- Taxpayers and public budgets
- Covering long-term care can pull unpaid family care into the paid system: Replacing unpaid family care with paid aides increases public costs.
- Family caregivers and affected families
- Covering long-term care can pull unpaid family care into the paid system: Offering a smaller cash benefit for families to provide care themselves lowers costs and supports family care.
Who loses
- Family caregivers and affected families
- Covering long-term care can pull unpaid family care into the paid system: Covered home care relieves unpaid caregiving.
- Hospitals, clinics, and care organizations
- Covering long-term care can pull unpaid family care into the paid system: Home-care agencies gain paid care work previously done by families.
Where it has been tried
- Germany: In Germany's long-term care system, 79% of home-care beneficiaries choose the cash benefit over formal services, receiving a monthly allowance valued at roughly 50% of the in-kind service benefit limit (2012).Sources: Health Services Research (2012)