The House Energy & Commerce Committee has added Senator Ted Kennedy's national long-term care insurance proposal (the CLASS Act) to its version of health reform legislation. This is another remarkable step forward for the measure although, as I've noted before, the fate of this and other long-term care provisions won't be decided until Congress writes a final health care bill sometime this [...]
A new poll suggests the public would like to see long-term care reform included in any congressional remake of the health system. While many respondents were concerned about their ability to pay for care, their biggest interest was in better coverage for home and community supports that could keep them out of nursing homes. The survey, done by Lake Research Partners for [...]
For those interested in long-term care, the House Democrats' consensus health reform bill is pretty disappointing. Unlike the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee version, it includes no proposal for national long-term care insurance. And it largely ignores efforts to expand access to home care for those on Medicaid, who now often can only get care in nursing facilities, or to better coordinate care [...]
The Obama Administration has given a boost to Senator Ted Kennedy's national long-term care insurance program, the CLASS Act. In a July 6 letter to Kennedy, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius said President Obama believes "it is appropriate to include the CLASS Act as part of health reform." Obama co-sponsored the bill when he was in the Senate, but [...]
I've begun writing a regular, bi-weekly column for Kaiser Health News, a new independent news service. This morning's column looks at how much CLASS Act premiums would cost. The bottom line; Monthly payments for a national long-term care insurance policy would be more than its backers hope, but would still be affordable for many middle-class buyers.
Supporters of Senator Ted Kennedy's CLASS Act, which would create a national long-term care insurance program, are bragging that the plan would produce $59 billion for the government over the next 10 years, money they say could help pay for health reform. As much as I like the ideas behind the CLASS Act, this claim is both misleading and counterproductive. It [...]
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that premiums for the national long-term care insurance system proposed by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) may be significantly higher than the $65 per month Kennedy aimed for. CBO figures that for the insurance system to be self-sustaining, premiums would have to be in the range of $100 to $110 per month. A key question for the Kennedy [...]
Nobody wants to see chronically-ill elderly patients making repeated trips to the emergency room. These visits are obviously bad for the patients themselves, who often suffer stress, disorientation, and high risks of infection. They are no good for Medicare, which has to pay the bill: The estimated cost of these readmissions is $17 billion annually. And, despite the common perception, they may not be good for hospitals, which are [...]
I participated in an interesting panel discussion on long-term care this afternoon at The Urban Institute . My fellow panelists were an impressive group of policy experts, all of whom have designed their own reform plans. They included Bill Galston from the Brookings Institution, Rich Johnson from The Urban Institute, and Anne Tumlinson from the consulting firm Avalere Health. While each approaches the problem from a [...]
The Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee have, as I expected, included three key long-term care services proposals in their massive 615-page health reform bill. The measure would require states to offer the same access to home and community care as they currently provide for skilled nursing facilities under Medicaid. It would provide new incentives for training both paid [...]