Long-Term Care Insurance Reform in Singapore.

In recent years, governments in rapidly aging countries have looked toward the implementation of public insurance schemes to help cover the costs of care for their aging citizenry. This article presents a comprehensive overview of long-term care insurance policy in Singapore. We discuss the successes and challenges of nearly two decades (2002-2019) of policy experimentation with a voluntary long-term care insurance scheme, which was replaced by mandatory social insurance in the 2019 reform. Various aspects of the new scheme, including mode of financing, eligibility criteria, benefit design, and potential impacts are assessed. The article concludes that, in the inherent tension between the breadth and depth of public long-term care social insurance coverage, Singapore has opted for breadth at the expense of depth.

The Politics of Aging under a Hybrid Regime: The Case of Democratization in Hong Kong.

Students of the politics of aging have mainly focused their research on the following: (1) elders' voting patterns and other forms of political participation, (2) the power and influence of older people as perceived, most notably, by politicians, and (3) the effectiveness of pressure/interest groups and lobbyists for older people. The context of their research has been large and growing national fiscal deficits and the projected growth in health care, long-term care, and age pension costs arising from population aging and the consequent calls for welfare state reform. However, an aspect of the relationship between aging and politics in which there has been little investment is that of the engagement of elders with issues and that do not bear narrowly on their own well-being or self-interest. This paper focuses upon the politics of aging in relation to the highly controversial issue of greater democratization in Hong Kong SAR, China. It seeks to provide some insight into the role played by Hong Kong's elders in shaping politics and policy under a quasi-democratic regime in order to move beyond, on the one hand, the focus by students of the politics of aging on liberal democracies and, on the other, their hitherto exclusive focus on the politics of aging in relation to old-age welfare state reform.

The Lived Experience of Providing Care and Support Services for Holocaust Survivors in Australia.

Lack of awareness among paid carers of the possible late-life consequences of early-life periods of extreme and prolonged traumatization may have negative impacts on the experiences of trauma survivors in receiving care. An interpretive phenomenological approach was used to investigate the lived experience of paid carers in providing care for Jewish Holocaust survivors. In total, 70 carers participated in 10 focus group discussions. Credibility of the findings was ensured by methodological triangulation and peer debriefing. Three major themes emerged: (a) knowing about survivors' past helps me make sense of who they are, (b) the trauma adds an extra dimension to caregiving, and (c) caring for survivors has an emotional impact. Specific knowledge, attitudes, and skills for building positive care relationships with Holocaust survivors were identified. The findings offer a starting point for advancing knowledge about the care of older survivors from other refugee backgrounds.

Israel's Long-Term Care Social Insurance Scheme After a Quarter of a Century.

Long-term care social insurance schemes exist in a number of countries, while the introduction of such schemes enjoys some support in others. Israel's long-term care social insurance scheme has been operating since 1988. This article examines the emergence, goals, design, and impacts of this scheme and draws out some of the lessons that can be learned from Israel's quarter century experience of long-term care social insurance.

In courtroom 7--the Children's Koori Court at work: findings from an evaluation.

This article reports some of the findings of an evaluation of the Children's Koori Court (CKC)--the first legislated effort in Australia to involve the Indigenous community in the sentencing of young Aboriginal offenders as a strategy for reducing their overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system. A prominent feature of this court of summary jurisdiction is that the presiding magistrate, while remaining the sentencing authority, is assisted by Aboriginal Elders. This article focuses on the evaluation findings that were derived from observations of the CKC in action. They indicate that the operational objective of cultural responsiveness was realized. They also point to realization of the community-building goal-fostering Indigenous ownership of the administration of the law. Little slippage was found between the CKC's design and operation, although some areas of improvement were identified. Nevertheless, the scope for the CKC by itself to significantly reduce overrepresentation is limited.

Elder participation and senior power in Australian electoral politics.

This article seeks to assess the "goodness of fit" between the social science literature on the impact of older voters on electoral outcomes and the Australian experience of the politics of aging. While the literature suggests that the notion of senior power is a flawed one, Australia's 2004 federal election campaign indicated that this is not quite so. This article offers a possible explanation for the difference between the literature and the Australian experience in terms of the calculus that underpinned the election campaign, namely, capturing the votes of swing voters in marginal seats including "silver" swing voters in seats with a disproportionate number of older voters. The preliminary findings of a small exploratory study of campaign strategists suggest that there may be a real basis to this explanation. Thus, there does appear to be some basis for asserting that "gray power"does play a role in Australian national electoral politics.

Achieving justice for children: public defenders in Israel's juvenile courts.

In 1999, public defender (PD) representation of defendants appearing before Israel's juvenile courts began to be phased in. This article reports some of the major findings of a study that examined the impacts of the introduction of PDs. Analysis of interviews with 14 PDs yielded four major themes concerning the impact of the "arrival" of PDs, nature of the court, PDs' role, and PDs' interactions with other court actors. Analysis of interviews with eight prosecutors yielded seven themes concerning the need for PDs, PD as state agent, PDs' role, harms of legalization, disruption of the court, compromising the therapeutic value of the court hearing, and changes in court process. More generally, both PDs and prosecutors placed uncritical store in the value of rehabilitation alternatives. Indeed, the welfare model continues to shape their roles. The findings can largely be explained in terms of Eisenstein and Jacob's courtroom workgroup model.