LTC
Bullet: LTC Embed:
Report from the Policy Front in New England Wednesday, June 6, 2007 LTC Comment: Our
report from the LTC policy front in New England after the ***news.*** *** SYNDICATED COLUMNIST ON OUR SIDE:
With all the bad publicity about LTC providers and insurers, it's
good to know a few thoughtful reporters and commentators understand
long-term care and tell it "like it is."
Terry Savage of the Chicago Sun Times is one of those
friends of responsible LTC planning. See, for example, her "Memorial Day" column at http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/403653,CST-FIN-terry28.savagearticle,
which said: "Re-arranging
assets to qualify for Medicaid. Every
week I receive an e-mail asking about the rules for spending down assets
or giving them away to family members so a parent can qualify for
state-provided (Medicaid) custodial care.
With all due respect to the hard-working and underpaid people who
work in these nursing homes, a state-funded nursing home is absolutely
the last place you'd want your parents to spend their final days.
But the real question is whether it is moral -- or a fitting
memorial -- to those who served to ask taxpayers to cover the costs of
care for the aged while their children spend their parents' money?
Is that the sacrifice we want to memorialize?
SOLUTION: Long-term-care insurance.
It gives you choice of care, and saves your assets for your
children who can enjoy them without guilt."
Hear, hear! *** *** DRA OPPOSITION CRUMBLES: Remember all the bunk about how the Medicaid eligibility
changes in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 would prevent
"millions" of frail and infirm elderly Americans from
obtaining critically need long-term care?
An Alabama Medicaid planning attorney sued to repeal the DRA.
So did a bunch of members of Congress.
As did Public Citizen, the advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader.
Most of those lawsuits have been thrown out of court.
The latest to bite the dust is the Public Citizen suit.
One still standing was filed by the Medicaid planner, a member
(wouldn't you know it?) of the infamous National Academy of Elder Law
Attorneys (NAELA), the Medicaid planners' trade and lobbying
association. We'll let you
know what happens with that one. *** *** LTC PARTNERSHIP SUMMIT:
Mark Meiners, Professor and Director of the Center for Health
Policy, Research & Ethics at George Mason University, has announced
the revival of the LTC Education Foundation (which previously put on the
original 17-year-running "Private LTC Insurance Conference")
for the purpose of sponsoring "The First Annual Partnership Summit:
Charting the Future of Long-Term Care Insurance" to be held August
1-2, 2007 in Arlington, VA. The
meeting begins with a "pre-conference" on July 31.
For all the details and to register, go to http://www.gmu.edu/departments/chpre/ltcedfoundation/.
*** *** LTCI PRICE INDEX:
Jesse Slome and the American Association for Long-Term Care
Insurance (AALTCI) have announced the release of the "2007 National
Long-Term Care Price Index." Find
the details at http://www.aaltci.org/subpages/media_room/story_pages/media070107.html.
Watch for "full findings" in "LTCi Sales
Strategies Magazine," a resource sent to all members of AALTCI, a
fine organization you can join at its website:
www.aaltci.org. *** *** REFERRALS.
Thank
you for reading the Center for Long-Term Care Reform's latest "LTC
Bullets" newsletter. If
you know someone who would be interested in this publication, please
recommend us by clicking here http://www.centerltc.com/bullets/recommendus.htm.
If you have received this edition as a forward, and would like
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Thank you. *** LTC BULLET: LTC
EMBED: REPORT FROM THE
POLICY FRONT IN NEW ENGLAND LTC Comment: As
Center for Long-Term Care Reform members know from our daily "LTC
E-Alerts," I'm in New England conducting a series of briefings on
long-term care financing policy. If
you missed those reports and would like to follow our progress, check
out the Center's LTC Blog at www.centerltc.com. In a nutshell, I started last Thursday with an
address to 300 reverse mortgage lenders at a "Financial
Freedom" conference in Orlando.
Then I met with a group of state legislators, hospital CEOs and
top-level state officials in Randolph, Vermont.
Capping that day was a brief visit with VT Governor Jim Douglas
and a planning session with Ethan Allen Institute Executive Director
John McClaughry (www.ethanallen.org). After a weekend visit to Harley Gordon's CLTC
"VIP Study Group" conference in Greensboro, North Carolina, I
returned to New England for a brainstorming session in Boston with
representatives of Fidelity Investments and its newly formed Fidelity
Research Institute (www.fidelityresearchinstitute.com).
See my report "Fidelity to LTC" on the Blog. Next came an excellent visit in Hartford,
Connecticut with the Executive Director and a bright young policy
analyst for the Yankee Institute (www.yankeeinstitute.org).
The Yankee Institute is beginning an important study of long-term
care financing in Connecticut and we did our best to point them in some
promising directions. The Center for Long-Term Care Reform is proud to
count MetLife among our corporate members.
We also place great value on the research produced by the MetLife
Mature Market Institute (http://www.metlife.com/Applications/Corporate/WPS/CDA/PageGenerator/0,2752,P2801,00.html).
So a visit with Jodi Anatole and David Acselrod at the company's
headquarters in Westport, CT made perfect sense and proved very
worthwhile. Jodi will be
one of the Yankee Institute's first interviewees for its study of
long-term care financing. I find myself this morning in Concord, New
Hampshire about to meet with Executive Director Charles Arlinghaus of
the Josiah Bartlett Institute (www.jbartlett.org).
Center member Roberta Brayer, who is active in LTC public policy
advocacy, will join us to discuss strategy and tactics in the state
known for its "live free or die" motto. Tomorrow, I'll be in Boothbay Harbor, Maine for a
meeting with representatives of the Maine Heritage Policy Center (www.mainepolicy.org)
and the Maine Health Care Association (www.mehca.org).
Maine is struggling to fund LTC for a growing elderly population
with a declining workforce of younger people.
New ideas and unconventional strategies designed to break the LTC
public policy logjam will be the order of the day. By the time I wrap up this jaunt, I'll have been in nine different hotels in as many days. And ready for a respite: a lazy return to the West by train across Canada. So if your reading load from the Center lightens up for awhile, that's why. |