LTC Bullet:  The LTCI Power List  

Tuesday, November 6, 2007 

Seattle-- 

LTC Comment:  Senior Market Advisor magazine identified "10 individuals who are making a real difference in the [LTCI] industry."  Find out who and why after the ***news.*** 

*** LTC AWARENESS WEEK began Sunday, November 4.  Read all about it in yesterday's "LTC Blog" entry at www.centerltc.com.  At least check out www.yourltcsuccess.com and watch the new video on LTC planning at http://www.kiplinger.com/yourretirement/longterm/.  It's so nice to see some momentum building for the LTCI market. *** 

*** 2008 MEDICAID NUMBERS.  CMS has announced the new "Spousal Impoverishment" numbers for Medicaid.  Center for Long-Term Care Reform individual and corporate members can access the latest numbers (and the comparable figures for every year back to 1991) in The Zone at http://www.centerltc.com/members/medicaid_and_medicare_key_numbers.htm.  If you need your user name and password, or if (heaven forfend) you're still not a member of the Center, contact Damon at 206-283-7036 or damon@centerltc.com.  He'll quickly get you access to our rich web content and daily publications. *** 

*** LTC TOUR.  Read about it in Senior Market Advisor and in today's LTC Bullet.  Have you signed up to work with Steve Moses on next year's National Long-Term Care Consciousness Tour?  Times and locations for the Tour's southeast region (FL, GA, AL, MS, SC, NC and TN) are going fast.  Check out the Tour at the top of www.centerltc.com.  Click on the "Silver Bullet of LTC" to see our "media magnet," a silver FJ Cruiser towing an Airstream trailer.  We'll reach millions through local media next year with our LTC planning message.  The upfront cost to participate in your local area is nominal ($500) and it guarantees Steve will (1) work with you in advance to plan events, (2) bring the "Silver Bullet of LTC" to your town, and (3) make one or more presentations with you.  Call us at 206-283-7036 or email damon@centerltc.com if you'd like to reserve a date.  Watch for more on this opportunity in Thursday's LTC Bullet.  Steve says:  "I've almost completed a 'tool kit' for Regional Representatives to help you prepare for and get the most benefit from the Center's National Long-Term Care Consciousness Tour. *** 

 

LTC BULLET:  THE LTCI POWER LIST 

LTC Comment:  Following is Senior Market Advisor editor Brian Anderson's introduction to a series of ten vignettes (with photos) about people making a difference today in the long-term care insurance industry.  The list is not comprehensive.  When asked, I recommended the same people and many others as well.   

But I think it's a good list.  And I'm proud to be on it, along with Phyllis Shelton, Claude Thau, Jesse Slome, Deb Newman, Harley Gordon, Margie Barrie, Jim Glickman, Gail Holubinka, and Hunter McKay.  To whom, I add my congratulations. 

So keep reading for the introduction to "The Power List:  Who's Who in LTCI 2007" and the section of the story on Steve Moses.  For the full article, including pictures of all ten of us, go to http://www.producersweb.com/m/smaMagTheme/SMA_SS_Nov07opt.pdf.    

Then, don't miss the special section available only online here.  It's titled "How the experts see the LTCI industry evolving in the next five years."  I'll include my answer to that query below. 

Want to subscribe to Senior Market Advisor free of charge?  Go here.  Then, click on the "Subscribe or Renew Now" button. 

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"The Power List:  Who's Who in LTCI 2007"
by
Brian Anderson
 

In April, Senior Market Advisor took its first foray into profiling a list of industry leaders when we named 10 to the Annuity Power List. Now we turn the spotlight on the LTCI market, where we have once again identified 10 individuals who are making a real difference in the industry.  

The staff at SMA started by soliciting names of difference-makers from a wide variety of respected LTCI professionals, and through research and interviews with industry insiders on and off the list, we culled the candidates down to the final 10 based on who we thought has done the most to further the worthy cause of long term care insurance.  

This list has a definite bent on those who offer sales training to agents and advisors. A major obstacle the LTCI industry needs to overcome to reach its rightful place in the portfolio of the average middle class to upper-middle class person is having enough qualified, motivated salespeople who know how to effectively sell the product to consumers.  

Several people on this list are at the forefront of LTCI sales training. This will pay off in spades as baby boomers begin to really understand the need for LTCI and the protection it provides to their families as well as themselves. Most have written at least one book about LTCI, from either a consumer or a sales perspective, and just about all of them are frequent speakers on long term care-related topics at industry events.  

As is the nature of such a list, surely there are plenty of deserving, well-qualified people who were omitted. But in reading the profiles on the following pages, we think you'll agree the people we did pick are deserving of the honor. 

- Brian Anderson, editor  

Stephen A. Moses  

Stephen Moses is so serious about promoting LTCI that he plans on essentially going on tour for a year to do so.  

Moses is widely regarded as one of the most articulate spokespeople for privately financed LTC. He is the president of the Seattle-based Center for Long-Term Care Reform Inc., which promotes universal access to top-quality long term care by encouraging private financing as an alternative to Medicaid dependency for most Americans.  

Starting Jan. 1 of 2008, Moses will embark on the "National Long-Term Care Consciousness Tour," where he will live on the road for a year, focusing on six regions of the U.S. for two months each. He will work locally with LTCI producers and providers, financial planners, CPAs, lawyers and government officials to reinforce the importance of LTC planning.  

Moses has directed numerous national and state-level studies, and specializes in problems associated with "Medicaid estate planning," the practice of artificially impoverishing affluent people to qualify them for public assistance.  

"My contribution to LTC has been to shore up Medicaid as a long term care safety net for the poor by promoting public policy that discourages 'Medicaid planning' abuses and encourages responsible LTC planning," Moses says. "In that regard, I've had an impact on passage of four national statutes: MCCA '88, which made transfer of assets restrictions mandatory and solved spousal impoverishment; OBRA '93, which made asset transfer restrictions longer and stronger and made estate recovery mandatory; BBA '97, which came to be called the 'throw granny's lawyer in jail law;' and DRA '05, which further lengthened and strengthened asset transfer rules and unleashed the LTC Partnership program."  

Moses has testified before Congress and two-thirds of the state legislatures in support of policies to discourage Medicaid abuse and encourage private LTC financing alternatives. 

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Here's how Steve Moses answered the question "How will the long-term care insurance industry evolve over the next five years?" 

Center for Long-Term Care Reform Inc. President Stephen Moses: 

"Over the next five years, LTC insurance will sadly remain a niche product struggling mostly unsuccessfully to increase sales. That's because government gives away most LTC in this country through Medicaid and Medicare; the public is anesthetized to the risk and so does not plan for LTC; and the LTCI industry does not understand that those are the main reasons the product does not sell well. It is probably too late now for private insurance to prevent a major catastrophe when baby boomers need LTC, but public programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have succumbed to coming financial crises. At that point, the poor will suffer with worse care than government provides today; boomers will use their home equity as the only way to obtain decent care; and the next generation will start to buy LTCI when they see their inheritances consumed by their boomer parents' LTC. Thus, the free market will sort things out over the next 20 years, but it won't be pretty. In the meantime, my National LTC Consciousness Tour is intended to help wake up the public before it is too late at least for some individuals and families and to show LTCI producers how they can protect more people by understanding (and selling to) the real problem (access to quality care) instead of the phony one (asset spend down) that they've been taught."