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. ------------
"The
Power List: Who's Who in
LTCI 2007" 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. ------------
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." |