California has taken the idea of managed care for low-income seniors and people with disabilities to a whole new level. Under an agreement with the Obama Administration announced last week, the state will begin shifting both medical care and long-term supports and services to managed care companies in just seven months. Watch this closely. You may be looking at the [...]
Long-Term Care insurance too expensive? How about short-term care insurance? In an attempt to make increasingly-costly coverage affordable for middle-class buyers, some insurers are selling policies that offer bare-bones personal care benefits—sometimes as little as $50-a-day for three months. These policies are more affordable, but are they worth the money? Bankers Life and Casualty Co. has been selling these low-cost, low-benefit [...]
Nearly two months ago, Congress created a commission to recommend reforms to the current long-term care system. So what has happened since? Not much. Leaders of Congress have appointed members to serve on the panel but President Obama—who has three of 15 picks-- has not yet made his choices. The commission can’t select a chairman, find a staff, or set an agenda [...]
A new insurance company survey of financial advisers reports that four-in-ten have clients who ask about giving away their assets so they can become eligible for Medicaid long-term care. Oddly, though not surprisingly, the same advisers report their clients say that a key goal of their long-term care planning is “maintaining control.” The online survey, by Nationwide Financial, questioned a [...]
Slowly but surely, more people who receive Medicaid benefits for long-term supports and services are getting their care at home rather than in nursing facilities. Still, only about 3.3 million seniors and younger people with disabilities who require long-term care get such help at home—about 1 million more than in 2000. Overall, the program now spends about $50 billion or [...]
Medicaid is in the budget bull’s eye. But many lawmakers aiming to cut the program have no idea what it does, and how important it is to frail seniors who need help with daily living. The popular image of Medicaid: health care for a poor mother and her children. The all-too-common reality: long-term supports and services for an 85-year old [...]
With the presidential election in less than two weeks, consumers, advocates, and providers should pay attention to what Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would do about long-term supports and services for the frail elderly and younger people with disabilities. It is hard to know for sure, because neither man has said much. Yet, between the lines, there are important messages. [...]
In the past few months, important events and circumstances have highlighted the need for an effective, sustainable way to finance the often-astronomical costs of long-term care services and supports. The growing political and financial pressures on Medicaid--the state/federal program that funds nearly half of all paid long-term care; the deepening problems in the private long-term care insurance market; and the demise of the CLASS Act--the failed attempt to [...]
Thank you, Bill Clinton, for reminding us that long-term care is a big part of Medicaid. In his Democratic convention speech this week, Clinton bungled a few of the details, but told a larger truth: Big cuts in Medicaid are likely to mean lost benefits for the frail elderly and younger people with disabilities. No other major speaker at either convention ever mentioned [...]
Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's vice-presidential pick, would fundamentally remake federal health and long-term care services for the frail elderly and adults with disabilities. He'd completely restructure Medicare, slash funding for Medicaid, and likely abolish most of the other safety net programs that this vulnerable population has come rely on over the last half-century. It is fair to say that no major party candidate for [...]