Earlier this week, I participated in a panel with Connie Garner, the Senate staffer who was a key architect of the CLASS Act, the national long-term care insurance program that is included in the new health reform law. Garner challenged the audience, which included several private long-term care insurance company execs, to work with her to help turn CLASS into workable [...]
President Obama has signed health reform, including the CLASS Act, into law. Now, his administration needs to turn a law into an insurance product people will buy. It won't be easy. No other country has tried to create a voluntary public long-term care insurance program, which is what CLASS is. The challenge will be to design a policy that provides a respectable benefit at an [...]
The health reform bill passed by Congress last night includes big changes in the way we pay for long-term care, both at home and in nursing facilities. The reforms will give the elderly and disabled far more flexibility in the way they get care and, at the same time, begin turning long-term care from largely a welfare program to an insurance system. The biggest change [...]
A typical couple would have to save nearly $200,000 to pay for their out-of-pocket medical costs from the time they are 65 until they die, according to an important new study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Add in nursing home costs, and they are likely to need $260,000. But that's only part of the story. About 5 percent of 65-year-old couples will [...]
If you think the U.S. is struggling over how to finance long-term care, just take a look at what's happening in the U.K. There, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who faces an uphill battle for reelection this spring, has proposed to expand free long-term care to 280,000 of the most needy. His proposal has not only come under fire from the opposition conservatives, but also from many in [...]
Why can't The Washington Post ever get it right when it comes to long-term care. Its latest self-embarrassment came with a piece it ran today comparing elder care in the U.S. with similar assistance in France and the U.K. According to the author, a psychologist named Sara Mansfield Taber, elderly women in England and France receive far better care than the writer's mother [...]
The CLASS Act, the proposed national long-term care insurance program, is included in the latest compromise health bill introduced today by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). This version of the bill has now been endorsed by all 60 Senate Democrats, including several, such as Nebraska's Ben Nelson, who had previously vowed to oppose the health measure if it included CLASS. Another [...]
The CLASS Act, a proposal to create a national long-term care insurance system, remains alive in the Senate health bill, but its fate remains far from certain. On Friday, the Senate actually voted 51-47 to drop the plan from its health bill. But, thanks to Senate rules that required 60 votes to approve the change, CLASS remains in the measure. Most troubling, [...]
The national long-term care insurance program called the CLASS Act will be included in the Senate Democratic leadership health reform bill that is expected to be released within the next day. The decision by Democratic leader Harry Reid to add CLASS to the bill is a huge victory for backers of the measure, which is already in the House-passed bill. However, many [...]
In a Nov. 13 report, Chief Medicare actuary Rick Foster estimates that the CLASS Act--the proposed national long-term care insurance program--faces "a significant risk of failure" because few would buy the coverage, and those who do would likely have high long-term care expenses. This phenomenon, called adverse selection, would drive up the cost of premiums and further discourage healthy people from buying coverage. The study will [...]