LTC Bullet: Bing, Bang, Boom:
Another Plan for LTC Reform
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Seattle--
LTC Comment: Bing
Chen's idea is for people to "trade off" Social Security income to
help fund their long-term care. We
offer a summary of the proposal followed by our comments.
LTC BULLET: BING,
BANG, BOOM: ANOTHER PLAN FOR LTC
REFORM
LTC
Comment: Yung-Ping (Bing) Chen,
Ph.D. holds the Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar's Chair in Gerontology at the
Gerontology Institute of the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Bing's idea for melding Social Security and long-term care financing
sounds like something Chairman Bill Thomas (R, CA), who has proposed expanding
Social Security reform to include long-term care, might consider.
We think it is worthy of consideration and thoughtful criticism.
Hence the following coverage. Dr.
Chen expressly asked to have his email summarizing the proposal included to
clarify how his recommendations would promote private LTCi policies.
-------------------
Hi
Steve:
Your
whirlwind activities in Washington are indeed impressive, and I think they will
be productive of results in time. I
appreciate being included in your email distribution. More power to your lips and pen!
I
want to keep you posted on what I am doing.
I recently made a presentation to the Ways and Means Committee. If you have any suggestions, either on substance or language,
you know I will appreciate them.
In
a presentation a few years ago, I had called my proposal an example of an "INTRAgenerational
transfer model of social insurance" in contrast to the traditional
"intergenerational transfer model of social insurance" that undergirds
Social Security and Medicare. Do
you think it would be useful to discuss the proposal in those terms?
On
the title of this statement, perhaps I should have used a different one since my
purpose is to promote the use of private insurance as well as social (public)
insurance to pay for long-term care. Maybe
I should title it something like "Insurance for Long-Term Care:
Public PLUS private."
I
believe my proposal would be an effective way of promoting sale of private
policies. Since the basic coverage
would be provided by public insurance, private long-term care insurance would
cost less than it does now and thus become more affordable to more people.
The visibility of the SS/LTC plan could, in addition, serve as a catalyst
to increase awareness of the need to prepare for long-term care.
How think ye?
Travel
safely and productively,
Bing
-------------------
Statement on “How to Create a Social Insurance Program
for Basic Long-Term Care Coverage,” hearing on the Retirement Policy
Challenges and Opportunities of our Aging Society, Ways and Means Committee,
U.S. House of Representatives, May 19, 2005.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to present for your
consideration a statement on “How to Create a Social Insurance Program for
Basic Long-Term Care Coverage.”
For the record, my name is Yung-Ping Chen.
I am a professor of gerontology and the Frank J. Manning Eminent
Scholar’s Chair in Gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
My academic and professional background in the field of Social Security
and economics of aging includes the following:
member of the technical panel of actuaries and economists of the 1979
Advisory Council on Social Security; delegate or consultant or both to the 1971,
1981, 1995 White House Conferences on Aging and the 1998 White House Conference
on Social Security; and faculty appointments at several colleges and research
organizations. I am a
founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and a fellow in the
Gerontological Society of America.
The statement I am presenting today, I should indicate, is based on my research that was supported by the Home Care Research Initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. However, the views I express are my own and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organization with which I am affiliated.
Mr.
Chairman, you are right to highlight long-term care as a national policy issue,
as you broaden the discussion of reforming Social Security to include other
retirement policy challenges and opportunities for our aging society.
I applaud you for the vision you are introducing to the Congress and the
nation.
Long-term
care--health, social, and personal services performed at home, in the community,
or in a nursing home or assisted-living facility--embodies many personal,
family, and societal issues in an aging society. The
need for long-term care will grow with the “aging of the elderly.”
In 40 years, those 85 or older are estimated to more than triple,
outpacing the growth rate of those 65 to 84, which will double.
A
key policy question for long-term care is whether the current system of paying
for it can be expected to meet future needs, a system that relies heavily on
personal payment and public welfare (Medicaid) and only lightly on social
insurance and private insurance.
Long-term care may
carry with it substantial, even catastrophic, costs to an individual or a
family. But only a small proportion
of people need an extensive amount of this care during their lifetimes.
Therefore, this
contingency is best protected by insurance. But
insurance is in limited use, as just noted. A system relying on Medicaid and personal payments to cover
the bulk of the costs is problematic. Medicaid has been subject to cuts and partial restoration of
cuts over the years, and personal payments may impoverish people and they have.
As a possible remedy,
some analysts propose expanding Medicare to include long-term care. Others
advocate a new social insurance program for it.
Given current and projected federal budget deficits, new tax dollars are
even harder to come by.
Others have promoted
private long-term care insurance as a solution. Limited income tax deductibility already exists for insurance
premiums, but few people buy private long-term care insurance policies.
Personal savings can
certainly help, but not many individuals can amass sufficient financial
resources over a lifetime to pay for the care of a long duration. For others who may experience unemployment, illness, or
disability during working years, chances for accumulating substantial
wherewithal are especially slim.
Mr. Chairman and
Members of the Committee, I believe a better way could be found by (1) more
widespread use of insurance in both public and private sectors, and (2) linking
several sources of funds that already exist in each sector to generate the
needed dollars to pay for social insurance and private insurance.
The new method I
propose is one in which social insurance and private insurance will pay for the
bulk of the costs, supplemented by personal payments.
I call it a “three-legged-stool” funding model.
How then do we find public and private dollars for a new social insurance program and for the purchase of private insurance? Since many people seem unable or unwilling to devote new resources for long-term care, I suggest using our existing resources more efficiently by trading resources dedicated for one purpose for another purpose. I call it the “trade-off principle.”
Applying the trade-off
principle in the public sector, we could divert, say, 5 percent of a retiree's
Social Security cash benefits (not payroll taxes) to fund a social insurance
program that provides basic long-term care.
I call this a “Social Security/Long-Term Care (SS/LTC) Plan.”
With this plan, retirees themselves are trading some income protection
for some long-term care protection. This
would enhance a retiree’s total economic security. Low-income
beneficiaries, though covered by the program, will be exempt from the trade-off.
This program could pay for one year
of nursing home care or two years of home care.
Participation in the
SS/LTC plan could be mandatory with an opting-out provision. So, people would be automatically enrolled in this plan upon
receipt of Social Security retirement benefits, but they may opt-out of it
within a reasonable timeframe. Or
people may be given a one-time opportunity to join SS/LTC plan at age 62 or 65.
To
pay for longer periods of care, people would buy private
long-term care insurance, much like those Medigap policies that supplement
Medicare. Since the social
insurance program would provide the basic coverage indicated above, private
long-term care insurance would cost less than it does now and thus become more
affordable to more people. The
visibility of the SS/LTC plan could, in addition, serve as a catalyst to
increase awareness of the need to prepare for long-term care.
And people would finance additional care out of pocket.
The trade-off principle
is already being used in the private sector. For example, a person could buy an insurance policy that
combines life insurance and long-term care, which pays for long-term care
expenses, if needed, by commensurately reducing life insurance benefits. Although
available, this type of combination policy is not wildly popular.
Perhaps there is a role for the government to encourage it.
To summarize, because
the current system of relying primarily on personal payments and public welfare
is inherently unsustainable or problematic and because the uncertain need for
long-term care is a risk best protected by insurance, I have proposed a
“three-legged-stool” funding model, under which social insurance would
provide a basic protection that would be supplemented by private insurance and
personal payment, with public welfare as a safety net. These four sources of funds are the same as those used at
present, but they would be deployed vastly differently under the proposed model.
Moreover, to implement the new funding model, I have also suggested a
“trade-off principle” to generate money to pay for social insurance and
private insurance because the prospect for new public and private dollars for
long-term care appears dim. . . .
I would be pleased to
provide additional materials to the Committee and its staff. Thank you for your
attention.
-------------------
LTC
Comment: Following is our reply to
Dr. Chen and our critique of his Social Security LTC Trade-Off proposal.
Dear
Bing:
Always
great to hear from you. Thanks for
the kind words and good will. Your
creative ideas are always welcome here. I'm
glad they're getting a hearing on the Hill too.
I wish there were more academics like you willing to open their minds and
trying to build bridges.
Thanks
for sending me your testimony. Here
are some comments. I think it is
critical to explain how we got into the LTC mess we're in before proposing a
solution. Almost no one does that,
however. Truth is, few people pay
privately or buy LTCi because the government has paid through Medicaid and
Medicare for 40 years. Adding more
public financing of LTC won't encourage private financing, but will rather crowd
it out even more.
Your
"intra-generational" model is interesting conceptually.
I read Laurence Kotlikoff's "The Coming Intergenerational
Storm" over the weekend. Pretty scary. So,
anything that discourages hanging the cost of the baby boomers on future
generations is attractive. The
problem is that piggy-backing LTC on Social Security isn't much more help than
adding it to Medicare. Both
programs are going down for the same reason.
Social insurance, like outright socialism, doesn't work. It punishes effort and rewards sloth. Private insurance spreads and prices risk, thus providing
critical economic information about the cost of bad behavior.
Social insurance only spreads risk, but does not price it.
Social insurance sends the message that no one needs to be responsible if
everyone is forced to pay. We're
beginning to see the economic consequences of that in Europe and Canada. Recent repeal of the prohibition on private health care in
Canada is a good example of how the world will be moving more and more toward
private insurance and away from social insurance as demographic Armageddon gets
closer and closer.
I
do think that, given the political reality in Congress and the Presidency,
proposing a social insurance approach is tactically wrong.
I'd suggest that you focus on the private insurance aspects of your
proposal, both in the title and in the substance as well.
The interest I'm seeing among legislators is in using private financing
alternatives to relieve the burden on already overwhelmed public financing
programs. You could pitch your
proposal that way, although we can't help coming back to the basic problem:
we don't need more dependency on public financing to encourage private
financing. Rather we need less
public financing, better targeted to unleash the potential of private financing.
Best
regards,
Steve