 LTC Bullet: Three New Articles Friday, October 29, 2021 Seattle— LTC Comment: With Halloween approaching, here are some scary stories about long-term care. Synopses after the ***news.*** *** AMADA SENIOR CARE Annual Franchise Conference 2021. Stephen Moses delivered the keynote address for this event at the beautiful Marriott Laguna Cliffs Resort in Dana Point, CA on October 27. He congratulated the home care company’s stunning success. Over half its customers have private long-term care insurance. Amada prides itself in helping its LTCI beneficiaries obtain all the benefits they have coming to them under their insurance policies, cutting through red tape that sometimes inhibits the process. Steve assessed the state of long-term care financing in the USA and suggested how the country could move successfully from its remaining institutional bias toward a mostly privately financed system dominated by home and community-based care. *** *** RECENTLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES by Steve Moses. In addition to the columns listed below, Steve has another article accepted for publication soon. “LTC Irony” scheduled for the November issue of Broker World. “What’s better for senior living and care — the market or government?,” by Stephen A. Moses, McKnight’s Senior Living, October 25, 2021 “Long-Term Care’s Problems Are Bad, Getting Worse, but Fixable,” by Stephen A. Moses, McKnight’s LTC News, October 1, 2021. “Should Medicaid Protect $8 Trillion from Private Senior Living Costs?” for McKnight’s Senior Living, August 9, 2021 “The InLTCgentsia” for Broker World’s August 2021 issue. “Panel Gives States Pass in Collecting Assets for Medicaid Long-Term Care,” by Stephen A. Moses, Health Care News, July 2021 (PDF version.) “Government Violates the Long Term Care Social Contract to Your Detriment, by Stephen A. Moses, Broker World, June 2021. (PDF version.) “President Biden, tear down this wall,” by Stephen A. Moses, McKnight’s LTC News, June 23, 2021 (PDF version.) “Using Medicaid to protect inheritances,” by Steve Moses and Brian Blase, TheHill, June 10, 2021. (PDF version.) “LTC financing: Be careful what you WISH for,” by Stephen A. Moses, McKnight’s Senior Living, June 7, 2021. (PDF version.) “The social contract for long-term care,” guest column by Stephen Moses for McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, May 17, 2021. (PDF version.) ***
LTC BULLET: THREE NEW ARTICLES LTC Comment: Magazines want exclusives on everything they publish. So I can’t share my three latest columns with you in full. But I do have permission to convey the essence of the articles and some short quotes. Please read the articles in their entirety at the sources. McKnight’s Long-Term Care News published “Long-term care’s problems are bad, getting worse, but fixable” on October 1, 2021. In it I explained what ails long-term care service delivery. I asked: “What do all of the analysts’, politicians’, and bureaucrats’ proposed solutions have in common?” I answered: “They propose more government funding and regulation, usually in the form of a new compulsory, social insurance program for long-term care.” I pointed to the WA Cares Fund and the WISH Act as examples of these dangerous approaches seeking to build on the shaky fiscal foundation of Social Security and Medicare. I explained how and why government funding and regulation caused long-term care’s problems by making Medicaid easy to get after care is needed. I concluded with these questions: “Who dares raise the call to close Medicaid LTC eligibility loopholes, make home equity a giant new source of private LTC financing, strengthen estate recovery rules to recapture wealth lost to Medicaid exemptions and persuade more people to plan early to save, invest or insure so they can pay privately for long-term care when they need it? Will you?” Broker World has scheduled “LTC Irony” for publication in its November issue. In it I point out the irony that decades of warning us “If you don’t buy long-term care insurance you could lose your life’s savings” had little impact on expanding the market. But let Washington State government impose a compulsory payroll tax on personal income unless citizens have private LTC coverage by November 1, and voila. A sudden fire sale ensued that shut down the market with excess demand. I conclude: “The lesson for state and federal central planners is this: if you must force people into mandatory payroll-funded LTC programs of dubious solvency, at least give them a way out by purchasing private insurance so we have some consumers able to pay their own way if and when the bottom falls out of the country’s many fiscally challenged entitlement programs.” Finally we’ve found the secret to selling private long-term care insurance: make it the only way to escape more government taxes, rules, regulations, and interference. McKnight’s Senior Living published “What’s better for senior living? The market or government?” on October 25, 2021. In it I compare and contrast the basic principles underlying markets on the one hand and government on the other. For example: “In markets, millions of transactions between willing buyers and sellers create spontaneous economic order, set interest rates (the price of money) through supply and demand, and generate price data which tell investors and businesses how much of which products and services to produce. In government, the Federal Reserve sets interest rates based on balancing political powers and influence resulting in asset bubbles, mal-investment, and economic inequality.” In the article, I ask and answer “How has government impacted senior living?” and “How could a more market-oriented approach improve senior living?” I conclude “Applying the general principles of markets and government identified above to the practical challenges of senior living and long-term care points to only one conclusion. We need to rely more on markets and less on government to improve both.” Happy reading! |