LTC
Donor-Only Bullet:
LTCI Tax Deductibility:
High Hopes Turn to Lowered Expectations
Tuesday
August 28, 2001
Seattle—
Last
year, growing awareness of future long-term care costs, combined with bulging
budget surpluses, led to high hopes that above-the-line tax deductibility for
private LTC insurance would soon become a reality. Didn't happen. But
all of us savvy prognosticators were saying "just wait for next year; the
time is right."
Oops!
Shows how much we know. A
funny thing happened on the way to economic utopia.
The dot-com bubble burst; the economy bombed; state and federal tax
receipts collapsed; and Medicaid expenditures are skyrocketing 10 percent per
annum for the first time since the early 90's.
Suddenly,
optimism is flagging for passage of the Long-Term
Care and Retirement Security Act of 2001 (LTCRSA '01: H.R. 831 and S. 627), sponsored by Nancy Johnson (R-CT) in
the House and Charles Grassley (R-IA) in the Senate.
The buzz is not good.
Well-known author and financial planner Suze Orman told an LTCI
conference in Las Vegas that LTCRSA '01 was unlikely to pass this year.
Insiders say desirable, but expensive features added to the
bill when times were good may have to go for the bill to have a fighting chance.
When
Congress and President Bush rushed through the tax act that dropped early refund
checks in our mailboxes recently, everyone expected another tax bill to pass
later in the year that would clean up a lot of loose ends…including
above-the-line tax deductibility for LTCI.
Now that the budget surplus (except the excess lock-boxed for Social
Security) has evaporated, however, such optimism has gone poof too.
Unfortunately,
the LTCRSA '01 bill is kind of expensive. The
LTCI tax deductibility portion only costs $18.5 billion over 10 years, most of
which will ultimately be saved in reduced Medicaid expenditures, but the $3,000
tax credit for current caregivers--added to forge a strange-bedfellows alliance
between the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) and AARP--is a dead
loss of $29.7 billion over 10 years. Experts
fear the cost-effective tax deduction will now sink, dragged down by the far
more expensive tax credit.
Without strong tax incentives to encourage baby boomers
to plan early and insure fully for long-term care, many of that
77-million-strong mega-generation will fall onto Medicaid by default just as
their parents and grandparents did. That
could be a devastating blow, even the coup d' grace, for America's
welfare-financed, institution-based long-term care system.
The only way to save Medicaid for the poor, and hopefully
improve it, is to divert middle-class boomers to private financing alternatives
for long-term care (including LTC insurance) now, while they are still young,
healthy, and affluent enough to afford the cost.
Congress and President Bush are penny-wise, pound foolish if they miss
this last, viable opportunity to act.
So, don't lose hope.
Political pundit Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard told the Private LTC
Insurance conference in Miami last week that tax deductibility could still pass
if there is another tax bill for it to ride in on.
Also, HIAA is launching "Americans Planning for
Today and Tomorrow," a grassroots campaign designed to build stronger and
broader support for LTCRSA '01. The
campaign focuses on grassroots consumer education and activation.
It's a fight worth waging, even if it's a losing battle this year.
And, of course . . .
There is always next year.