The Research On Government Purchasing Elderly Care Service

With the development of society and economy, government starts to take the task of the transform of government function, the reform of social management system, and the improvement of service efficiency. Because people’s living standard improves and the level of medical services arises, the national average life expectancy is also rising, the aging time has come in China. At the same time, the number of "elders who live alone" increases, and the traditional family pension system is being broken. As a result, nursing houses and NGOs provide elderly care services in charge or for free. The government has found a new way. It uses the public funds to buy elderly care services from the social forces for older man for free or with low price. Introducing social forces and the mechanism of market competition can not only reduce the pressure of providing elderly care service directly but also improve the efficiency of the government operation and the financial funds. What is more, the new way can make social security more vital.The government’s role in the procedure of purchasing elderly care service is actually the combination of demander and purchaser and the agent. Because the government takes the bridge role between elderly care institutions and the elderly, it bears a multiple responsibilities and obligations. Government, elderly care service providing organization and the elderly are three roles in the procedure. Because their roles are different, the internal starting point and core needs differs in the whole process of purchasing elderly care services. All of these result in different role behaviors, and the conflict inevitably caused both the inner and the outer conflicts. In reality, the government purchasing elderly care service has multiple difficulties, including funded ratio difficulties and predicament of the service quality supervision, supplier selection dilemma, and service effectiveness assessment plight.In other countries and regions, the elderly care service’s outsourcing and purchasing procedure has a long history, and the purchase way is also more mature which means a lot of experience is worth learning. The multiple way of service purchasing in Hong Kong area, the volunteer spirit in purchasing elderly care service in Japan and Dutch professional third party management mechanism are typical purchasing way for elderly care services.Through the study of these countries’and regional experiences, and considering China’s national conditions and the actual situation characteristics, the solution of the plights between our government and elderly care institutions and the elderly and policy recommendations are innovatively proposed. Through the merger of the government and the elderly, the departure of the government and the supervision and evaluation mechanism and diversified type of elderly care service institutions, the plights can transfer into some kind of innovation for the reform and institutionalization of government purchasing elderly care service.