LTC Bullet: New York Times
Misinformed on LTC Insurance
Monday June 6, 1998
Seattle--
This morning's New York Times contained an article about long-term
care financing. The article accurately conveyed the gravity of
long-term care as a personal and public policy issue. Unfortunately,
some information in the article regarding private long-term care
insurance was inaccurate and misleading. Furthermore, the author
of the article cited exclusively sources who promote public financing
and denigrate private financing of long-term care. The following
is a letter to the editor of the New York Times regarding the
long-term care article from Stephen A. Moses, President of the
Center for Long-Term Care Financing in Seattle, Washington. The
Center has also sent a hard copy of this letter, along with extensive
information about the benefits of private long-term care insurance
and the deficiencies of Medicaid and Medicare, to the Editor of
the Times and to the author of the article. We strongly encourage
those of you who share our views on this issue to write to the
Editor of the New York Times and convey your thoughts.
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June 8, 1998
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
You were wise to spotlight the personal and financial tragedy
of long-term care for the elderly ("Gap in Long-Term Care
Coverage for Elderly Seen as Growing Threat," June 8, 1998.)
Sara Rimer's article accurately conveyed the heart-rending vulnerability
of middle-aged, middle-class Americans and their parents to the
devastation of long-term chronic illness. It is true, as the article
suggests, that long-term care will dwarf Social Security and Medicare
in importance as a public policy crisis in the future. If baby
boomers are the Titanic, long-term care is the iceberg.
Unfortunately, the problem is even worse than your article suggests.
Medicaid, the government's nursing-home financing system, is a
means-tested public assistance program, i.e. welfare. It has a
dismal reputation for problems of access, quality, reimbursement,
discrimination and institutional bias. Medicare, the government's
home-care financing system, is reeling from skyrocketing cost
and is fraught with fraud. Both Medicaid and Medicare face severe
fiscal pressure and offer no hope whatsoever of financing long-term
care for the baby-boom generation.
There is hope from another source, however. Private long-term
care insurance is not nearly as unaffordable as your article suggests.
Excellent coverage is readily available for half the cost of the
premiums you cited. Furthermore, even lower premiums are possible
by carefully prioritizing coverage options to cover only genuinely
catastrophic risks. Finally, most people can readily afford private
long-term care insurance, even at older ages when it is more expensive,
if they look to home equity conversion or financial help from
adult children to assist with the premiums.
Please capitalize on this fine beginning. Revisit the subject
often and in depth. In the future, however, it might be advisable
not to rely exclusively on experts who promote public financing
and downplay private financing of long-term care. If we at the
Center for Long-Term Care Financing can render any assistance
in that regard, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Stephen A. Moses, President
Center for Long-Term Care Financing
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