Experts from the Ministry of Economy proposed to provide care for the elderly through insurance

Experts from the Ministry of Economy and the Russian Center for Competence and Analysis of OECD Standards at RANEPA proposed starting to finance the Long-Term Care System (LTC) for elderly citizens and people with disabilities through compulsory insurance. Currently in Russia, long-term care assistance is financed from regional budgets with co-financing from subsidies from the federal budget. To the Ministry of Economy RBC reported that the opinion of the authors of the article does not constitute the official position of the ministry.

The article “Approaches to the implementation of SDS for elderly citizens and people with disabilities in Russia in comparison with other countries” was published in the journal “Economic Development of Russia”. Its authors are Deputy Minister of Economic Development Tatyana Ilyushnikova, Director of the Department for Development of the Social Sphere and the Non-Profit Organizations Sector of the Ministry of Economy Svyatoslav Sorokin, experts from the Russian Center for Competence and Analysis of OECD Standards at RANEPA Maria Girich and the All-Russian Academy of Foreign Trade Antonina Levashenko and Ivan Ermokhin.

The authors pointed out that in Germany, South Korea, and Israel, care for the elderly and disabled is included in the social insurance system, and in Japan and France – in the health insurance system. At the same time, services can be partially financed from tax revenues, budget transfers and additional payments from service users themselves. In Russia, funding for long-term care comes from regional budgets and co-financing of subsidies from the federal budget. The exception is Moscow, which is working to create SDS at its own expense.

To begin with, the authors of the article propose to introduce voluntary insurance in Russia, in which the payer’s contributions will be used to pay for his own care. In the future, according to the authors of the article, financing should be provided through compulsory insurance, similar to the solidarity system of pension and social insurance.

At the same time, experts admit that the introduction of compulsory insurance “may cause dissatisfaction among citizens due to the additional financial burden in the form of new social contributions.” Therefore, the insurance rate should be low: no more than 1.5% (based on foreign experience) or no more than 0.5% (according to Russian experts, in particular the Association of Professional Participants of SDU).

A long-term care system for elderly and disabled people who cannot care for themselves was launched in Russia in 2018. At first it operated in pilot regions, and from September 2023 it was deployed in all regions of the country, the Ministry of Labor indicated. In 2023, funds in the amount of 10.9 billion rubles are provided from the federal budget to finance SDS, in 2024 – 11.8 billion rubles. The department noted that funding parameters for 2025–2026 will be clarified later. At the same time, as the Ministry of Labor emphasized, the introduction of an additional insurance contribution for the financial support of SDU is not being discussed.