LTC Bullet: Memory Lane Part Two (2002-2005) Friday, May 25, 2012 Seattle— LTC Comment: This week’s LTC Bullet brings us to part two of our “Memory Lane” series. We’ll get to that shortly, but first let’s have a look at why LTC Bullets are so important in this SPOTLIGHT ON: LTC Bullets Archives: LTC Bullets is our informative newsletter covering the latest developments in long-term care services and financing. You already know these critical emails--authored by CLTCR President, Stephen Moses--arrive in your inbox weekly, but did you know every LTC Bullet ever published is archived by date and by subject on our website? Over 950 informative LTC Bullets dating back to 1998 are easily searchable and available for all to view. Check them out here. In the archive, you’ll find the LTC Bullets organized into seven subjects: (1) The LTC Problem and Solutions, (2) Reality Check: The Facts on LTCI, (3) Medicaid Planning, (4) LTC Services, (5) Politics and Legislation, (6) Demographics and Other Data, and (7) CLTCR News. We provide this free service to educate the public, legislators, policy makers and long-term care professionals in order to encourage rational long-term care policy reform and responsible LTC planning. Browse to our LTC Bullets archives and start reading and researching today! -------------------------------- NEWS: Here are a couple of interesting articles that deal with filial responsibility laws. Last week, we shared these with subscribers to our Clipping Service:
LTC Comment: Although there are thirty states with filial responsibility laws on the books—laws that require adult children to care for their parents when they become indigent—they are rarely enforced. In most of those thirty states, LTC providers are allowed to sue family members of care recipients in order to recoup costs. Some might feel that because these laws are rarely enforced, they have no relevance. Perhaps they are totally innocuous. Perhaps they’re just some obscure anachronism dating back to English law and nothing to worry about. Or, on the contrary, maybe enforcement of filial responsibility laws could be a growing trend. Decide for yourself, but one thing remains true: We all will have to pay, in some form or another, for the care we and our families receive, whether we provide the care ourselves, pay privately, purchase insurance, or receive inadequate care. There’s no way to “pass the bill” for the cost of long-term care, but there are ways in which we can plan responsibly to protect ourselves and our families. The LTC Bullets below cover that in detail. -------------------------------- LTC BULLET: MEMORY LANE Part Two (2002-2005) LTC Comment: The Center for Long-Term Care Reform celebrated its 14th anniversary on April 1, 2012. That’s what prompted our “Memory Lane” series. This week’s addition to the series covers LTC Bullets from 2002 thru 2005. We’ll take a stroll and have a look at a few of the 950+ LTC Bullets the Center has published so far. But first, here’s a quick primer by Center President, Steve Moses, on our LTC Bullets and “Memory Lane” series: LTC Bullets began as brief news items before email was commonplace. I’d write them and put hard copies into the mailboxes of LTC, Inc.’s 50 regional offices. (After leaving federal service in 1989, I joined LTC, Inc., which managed AMEX Life’s and later GE’s captive agent force.) The regional offices would photo copy each Bullet and distribute them to the company’s approximately 1,000 agents around the USA. At its height, before GE purchased the company, LTC, Inc. sold an average of $3 million in premium per week.
After GE bought LTC, Inc. in 1997, attorney David Rosenfeld and I started the Center for LTC Financing in 1998 with GE’s help. The Center changed its name—“Financing” became “Reform”—in 2005. We continued to publish the LTC Bullets but they gradually became longer and more like op-ed articles expressing a point of view regarding LTC financing policy.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll bring you a retrospective of the LTC Bullets, kind of a walk down Memory Lane. What follows for each year of publication is the title of the LTC Bullet, a hyperlink to the original, the date of publication and a brief quote. If you’re interested, click through to read the original Bullet. Enjoy our trip down memory lane. 2002 LTC Bullets LTC Bullet #330: “Long-Term Care Benefits for Veterans,” January 15, 2002: “Long-term care insurance agents and brokers often ask us what kind of long-term care benefits military veterans can expect to receive. This question is on the minds of insurance sales people because it is on the minds of their prospects and clients. The same question should also concern legislators, administrators and policy makers. Veterans who unrealistically expect the government to pay for their long-term care may fail to save, invest or insure against that risk. Consequently, they may end up dependent unnecessarily and by default on already-overburdened public welfare programs.” LTC Bullet #373: “New CLTCF Speech: ‘Insurance: Private vs. Social,’” July 24, 2002: “The new speech we've just posted is titled ‘Insurance: Private vs. Social.’ Center President Stephen Moses delivered this talk on July 5, 2002 at The Objectivist Center's (TOC's) 2002 Summer Seminar in Los Angeles, California. (For information on TOC, go to http://www.theobjectivistcenter.com/.) The transcript of this speech has been modified slightly to remove content unique to that audience. What follows is an abstract and outline for the speech. The full text is at: http://www.centerltc.com/speakers/insurance.htm. Please direct comments or questions directly to mailto:smoses@centerltc.org.” LTC Bullet #387: “DENIAL IS NOT A RIVER IN EGYPT,” September 27, 2002: “Are you puzzled by the lackluster market penetration of long-term care insurance? Do you blame the public? Are they too stupid to realize the risk of LTC and that Medicare is no solution? Do you blame the industry? Are LTC insurers too incompetent to design or sell products people want? We've heard both explanations many times. Neither is accurate. If you want to know the real reason LTC insurance has not taken off yet, read Steve Moses' provocative article ‘Denial is Not a River in Egypt’ [in this Bullet]”LTC Bullet #392: “How to Save Medicaid LTC,” October 24, 2002: “The following article by Claude Thau, President of Thau, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Center for Long-Term Care Financing, describes a key aspect of the Center's LTC Choice proposal. For more details on LTC Choice, go to http://www.centerltc.com/pubs/CLTCFReport.pdf.”LTC Bullet #401: “The Triathlon vs. the Triumvirate: Why Can't We Fix Long-Term Care?,” November 26, 2002: “Ever wonder why America's corrupt, dysfunctional long-term care service delivery and financing system persists unreformed? Follow the money! But don't expect it to lead where you might think. Find out who benefits from the status quo in LTC and why they won't let us fix it.”2003 LTC BulletsLTC Bullet #418: “Whither We Are Tending in Long-Term Care,” February 12, 2003: “America's long-term care service delivery and financing system is headed toward collapse. The good news is that our dysfunctional LTC non-system is self-inflicted by well-intentioned but perversely counterproductive public policy and is, therefore, easy to fix. All we need is the wisdom to understand the problem and the will to confront it with rational public policy.”LTC Bullet #420: “Wall Street Journal Blasts Medicaid Estate Planning Today,” February 25, 2003: “Today's Wall Street Journal comes down hard on lawyers who artificially impoverish affluent clients to qualify them for Medicaid nursing home benefits. It also takes insurance companies and agents to task who huckster ‘Medicaid-friendly annuities.’”LTC Bullet #424: “The Elephant, The Blind Men and Long-Term Care,” March 12, 2003: “Who are the ‘blind men of long-term care’ and why can't they see how to solve the long-term care financing crisis? Find the answers [in this Bullet].”LTC Bullet #444: “Long-Term Care Lemmings,” June 5, 2003: “Following is an article titled ‘Long-Term Care Lemmings.’ In it, every major long-term care stakeholder group comes in for some friendly criticism. The article tries to tweak everyone to look beyond narrow, short-term, apparent self-interest and consider how all interest groups might work together toward their mutual interests and the interests of their common clientele--aging Americans. Our thanks to Broker World and "Insurance Publications" for permission to reprint. For a formatted .pdf version of this article, go to http://www.centerltc.org/pubs/Articles/LTC_Lemmings.pdf.”LTC Bullet #451: “Medicaid--LTC Safety Net or Inheritance Insurance?,” July 10, 2003: “Busted budgets are driving state Medicaid programs to target nursing home benefits more narrowly to the poor. Medicaid eligibility controls are a boon to LTC providers who need private payers, to LTC insurers who need buyers, to taxpayers who need relief, and to infirm seniors who command access to a wider range of better services when they pay privately. But targeting Medicaid to the needy is a bane to boomer heirs (and their lawyers) who currently reap a windfall of inheritance protection from the welfare system.”LTC Bullet #474: “The Heartland Model for Long-Term Care Reform,” December 10, 2003: “What if we could save the faltering Medicaid program by getting everyone else to buy private LTC insurance or use home equity? Where better to start than America's Heartland where Medicaid census is lowest, LTC insurance sales are highest, and pioneer values of personal responsibility remain strong? Read about ‘The Heartland Model for Long-Term Care Reform.’”LTC Bullets 2004LTC Bullet #490: “LTCi Professional Liability for Financial Advisors,” March 10, 2004: “Our thanks to attorney Harley Gordon, Founder and President of the Corporation for Long-Term Care Certification, for permission to publish the following article. Despite its length--three times the average LTC Bullet--we decided this subject is too important to abridge. You may also wish to review an article by Center President Steve Moses on the same topic titled ‘Long-Term Care Due Diligence for Professional Financial Advisors,’ which was published in the September 2001 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning. An online version of Steve's article is available at http://www.centerltc.org/speakers/due_diligence.htm . If you advise seniors on financial planning, these two articles may save you a tremendous amount of grief, embarrassment, and money.”LTC Bullet #510: “Medicaid's Perverse Incentives,” August 25, 2004, “Medicaid is full of perverse incentives. You've heard us talk here many times about some of them. For example, the program's generous and elastic eligibility rules make publicly financed LTC available to practically anyone without spending down. Consequently, the public is asleep about long-term care risk, few people buy private insurance or utilize reverse mortgages to pay privately for care, and America's welfare-financed, nursing home based LTC system is rapidly spiraling toward total collapse.”LTC Bullet #511: “Who Should Pay for Long-Term Care?,” September 1, 2004, “Who should pay the enormous cost of long-term care? Is LTC a personal responsibility for which people should plan and prepare? Or should government carry most of the financial burden as boomers approach senescence? The SAGE Crossroads hour-long online debate between Steve Moses and Josh Wiener on this controversial topic is now available for viewing.”LTC Bullet #512: “The Realist's Guide to Medicaid and Long-Term Care,” September 7, 2004: “Following is a press release announcing publication of the Center for Long-Term Care Financing's newest report: ‘The Realist's Guide to Medicaid and Long-Term Care.’ Read or download the report at www.centerltc.org/realistsguide.pdf.”LTC Bullets 2005LTC Bullet #532: “How to Save Medicaid $20 Billion Per Year,” January 5, 2005: “Everyone knows Medicaid costs are skyrocketing. Long-term care expenditures are a big part of the problem. The Bush Administration reportedly has Medicaid in its sights this year as a target for severe budget cuts. This fact has state governors and legislators, senior interest groups, and LTC provider associations up in arms to protect federal funding for Medicaid. A huge clash is in the offing.”LTC Bullet 546: “Who is the Lone Ranger of Long-Term Care?,” March 29, 2005: “Nursing Home/Long Term Care Management magazine's March 2005 feature article is titled "Long-Term Care’s Lone Realist Rides Again: Interview with Stephen A. Moses, President, the Center for Long-Term Care Financing."LTC Bullet #552: “Center to Give Congressional Testimony,” April 26, 2005, “Center president Steve Moses testifies tomorrow morning before the House Energy and Commerce Health Sub-Committee. Draft testimony and a link to the live webcast [in this Bullet].”LTC Bullet #554: “The Center is Dead . . . Long Live the Center,” May 3, 2005, “A personal message from Center for Long-Term Care Financing president Steve Moses.”LTC Bullet #570: “Long-Term Care Insurance Under the Microscope,” August 29, 2005: “The long-term care insurance market is in a world of hurt as the article that follows this comment documents. Prices (premiums) are up; sales are down; and attrition has whittled away many of the companies formerly in the business. What's going on? Readers of these ‘LTC Bullets’ know the fundamental problem. LTC insurers can't sell a product profitably that the government has been giving away (through Medicaid and Medicare) for forty years. Nothing significant will change for LTC insurers until that problem is fixed. But there is more to it than that. Technical problems have beset the LTCi industry. LTCi companies overestimated lapse and interest rates. Consequently, they under priced their products. All have had to raise premiums on new sales and many have raised premiums on in-place business.” LTC Bullet #571: “Aging America's Achilles' Heel,” September 1, 2005: “Today, the Cato Institute published Steve Moses's monograph titled ‘Aging America's Achilles' Heel: Medicaid Long-Term Care.’ The press release and a hyperlink to the paper follow [in this Bullet].” |