LTC Bullet:  McKnight's Editor Highlights LTC Tour 

Monday, January 14, 2008 

Fort Lauderdale, Florida-- 

LTC Comment:  A key LTC provider trade journal cheers on the Center for Long-Term Care Reform's National Long-Term Care Consciousness Tour after the ***news.*** 

*** 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 your own subscription, you may subscribe here http://www.centerltc.com/bullets/subscribe_to_bullets.htm, free for a month.  Thank you. ***   

*** FREE WEBINAR.  Those who watched it loved our "webinar" on how to get the most of out of the Center's public and password-protected websites.  If you haven't seen it yet, click here https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/549197239 or go to www.centerltc.com, scroll down until you find the "View Webinar" button, and dive in for a full-hour, in-depth tour of the most comprehensive source of information on long-term care financing available anywhere.  It's the only way to get a peek at our comprehensive "Almanac of Long-Term Care" without joining the Center, paying your dues, and getting a user name and password.  Once you see it, however, we're confident that's exactly what you'll want to do.  To join, go to http://www.centerltc.com/support/index.htm or contact Damon at 206-283-7036 or damon@centerltc.com. *** 

*** BONUS WEBSITE.  All you have to do to have your very own LTC website designed by LTC Connection is to join the Center for Long-Term Care Reform.  That's right, join the Center for $150 per year, get all our publications and access to The Zone, including our new "Almanac of Long-Term Care," and on top of that LTC Connection will design your website and waive their usual $149 fee.  Or look at it this way, buy your website from LTC Connection through the Center and get a year of membership in the Center for only $1 more.  Sure, you'll have to pay LTC Connection's $39 per month website maintenance fee, but you'll get a whole year of LTC Bullets and LTC E-Alerts for no extra charge.  So, what do you have to do?  Just contact Damon at 206-283-7036 or damon@centerltc.com, join the Center, pay your membership fee, and say "I want my website."  We'll connect you with the right person at LTC Connection and you'll be on your way.  Great content from the Center and a great website from LTC Connection.  How can you beat it?  Already a member of the Center but want your free website?  No problem.  Renew your annual membership early and get the same deal. *** 

 

LTC BULLET:  MCKNIGHT'S EDITOR HIGHLIGHTS LTC TOUR 

LTC Comment:  A key lesson of the Center's LTC Graduate Seminar (now available online; contact Damon for details) is that to understand long-term care financing, one must also understand LTC service delivery.   

Want to know why the public is in denial about long-term care in the richest country in the world?  Want to understand why America has a welfare-financed, nursing-home-based LTC system?  If so, you'd better learn all you can about the profession that provides long-term care in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.   

To learn about the business of providing nursing home and assisted living care, read two trade journals regularly:  McKnight's Long-Term Care News and McKnight's Assisted Living.  Subscribe at http://www.mcknightsonline.com/content/index.php?id=177.  While you're there, sign up for McKnight's Daily Updates.  These print journals and email updates are a trusted source of information for me and I'm confident you'll find them helpful as well. 

The editor's column in the current issue of McKnight's LTC News highlights the Center for Long-Term Care Reform's National Long-Term Care Consciousness Tour.  We thought you'd like to see this editorial, so it follows.  Special thanks to editor Jim Berklan for covering this important topic. 

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McKnight's LTC News
January 3, 2008
Editor's Desk: No easy solution ahead for LTC funding dilemma
By: James M. Berklan
http://www.mcknightsonline.com/content/index.php?id=105&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=4387
 

The year-end scramble for Medicare and Medicaid dollars ended with a bang - and the usual whimpers from various provider interests. 

There were winners on one side, losers on the other. And then there were those who won some but weren't totally satisfied - in a big group in the middle.  

And with a new year starting, the funding game begins again.  

The long-term care funding puzzle is beyond Rubik's cube stage, despite the best efforts of lawmakers and august bodies such as the short-lived National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care.  

Significant barriers still exist to figuring out how to stretch dollars far enough in the overly complex Medicaid program.  

A recent Kaiser report tapped into a large pool of disenchantment with Medicaid, long-term care's No. 1 funding source. Many commonly recommended funding alternatives to current schemes don't take into account that low-income beneficiaries simply can't afford to take part, report authors noted.  

"Greater coverage of private long-term care insurance and use of home equity programs, such as reverse mortgages, are not applicable to many low-income elderly and disabled people served by the [Medicaid] program," wrote authors from the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.  

Then, there are the more well off and those who do have some home equity to play with. That's where Steve Moses and his tireless campaign to get bogus Medicaid beneficiaries out of the mix come into play. 

Moses, the well-traveled, eloquent leader of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform, has embarked on a yearlong, nationwide journey to stump for better long-term care funding options. Odds are he and his "Silver Bullet" trailer will be coming to an area near you in 2008.  

Moses says he wants to reach out to long-term care providers and get them more involved. He reasons that operators can only benefit if more private long-term care insurance is brought into the mix and fewer people use estate planning to drain Medicaid funding.  

He'll spend the first couple of months in the Southeast and strategically shoot the Bullet to other regions as the seasons change. On Jan. 27, in fact, he'll be in Greensboro, NC, addressing an audience at the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association.  

Whether he'll be able to get enough policy makers to pay attention and act on his message in 2008 remains to be seen. But if history has taught us anything, it's that Moses will be going the extra mile to try.