Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
China is rolling out what some are calling its sixth social insurance, the long-term care insurance.
On paper, the cost looks quite minimal, just 0.3% of income.
But the ambition is anything but small.
And to fundamentally shift how care is delivered from unpaid family labor to a professional system.
So today we ask, how can this 0.3% really help solve a growing care crisis?
And what does it take to turn a policy promise into real support for millions of families?
Coming to you from our studios in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Fei Fei.
For today's program, I'm joined by Niu Honglin and Steve Heatherly.
First, on today's show, imagine an elderly who can no longer eat alone, who needs help getting out of bed.
That daily responsibility falls entirely on family members.
They may lose their wages, suffer sleepless nights, and the quiet erosion of their well-being.
For years, this was, by and large, a private struggle.
But over the past decade, a quiet policy experiment began changing that.
Long-term care insurance, or what some are calling the sixth social insurance,
has grown from a small pilot to a system covering 35 million elderly people and even more in China.
It doesn't just pay bills.
It sends professional caregivers to people's homes, turning a family crisis into a shared social responsibility.