LTC Bullet: Politics and Legislation: Thousand
Bullets Retrospective
Friday, May 16, 2014
Seattle—
LTC Comment: Your
Center for Long-Term Care Reform continues to celebrate its publication of
over 1,000 LTC Bullets with this overview of 15 years of “Politics
and Legislation” Bullets. Please enjoy this retrospective after
the ***news.***
***
AALTCI Conference: It’s
almost time for another excellent American Association for Long-Term Care
Insurance conference. Their Long-Term Care Solutions Sales Summit will be
held May 18-20 at the Westin Hotel in Kansas City, MO. Over the past
decade+ we’ve attended many of these conferences and have always found
them to be of especially high value in terms of professional development
through educational content and networking opportunities. I hope to see
you there, but if you can’t be there in person, they have you covered:
Be there virtually by tuning into a live webcast stream of selected
sessions for free! As usual, the American Association for Long-Term
Care Insurance is an outstanding resource for LTCi professionals. Click
here for further information and to register for free access. ***
*** BY THE WAY: If you are physically
attending the forthcoming AALTCI conference and smell delicious, fresh
popcorn, follow your nose until you find the LTC Financial Partners
booth. According to their
press release, LTCFP is “using popcorn and a 'top-10' list to recruit
long-term care insurance pros.” What a clever idea. Enjoy some popcorn
and learn about what LTC Financial Partners has to offer at their booth in
Kansas City and in their press release
here. ***
***
CLTCR Premium Membership:
Center for Long-Term Care Reform premium members receive our full
suite of individual membership benefits including: our LTC Bullets
and E-Alerts; access to our Members-Only Zone website and
Almanac of Long-Term Care; subscription to our
Clipping Service; and email/phone access to Steve Moses for 24-hour
turnaround queries. Our Premium Membership is designed to give you a
competitive advantage in your long-term care profession. Your increased
knowledge of the critical issues and challenges we face in the field of
long-term care service delivery and financing equals improved professional
success for you and better LTC services for your clients and for those who
have no choice but to rely on scarce public resources. Premium Membership
is $250 per year, paid up front or monthly by automatically recurring
credit card payments. Contact Damon at 206-283-7036 /
damon@centerltc.com to start your Premium Membership
immediately or go directly to our secure online subscription page and
sign up for as little as $21 per month. ***
LTC BULLET: Politics and Legislation: THOUSAND BULLETS
RETROSPECTIVE
LTC Comment: Once a week, usually on
Fridays, we publish our latest LTC Bullet. The Bullets are
often policy pieces, sort of like op-eds. You can always find the latest
Bullets
here and archives of the rest of the 1,000+ Bullets (so far),
by date
here and by topic
here. These 1,000+ articles are a valuable historical resource.
Please make use of them. Search for key terms using Control-F on your
keyboard.
This series is a retrospective of the
most interesting and dramatic LTC Bullets that we’ve published
since the Center’s founding in 1998. We’ll highlight one Bullet
per year in each of seven major topics: “The LTC Problem and Solutions”;
“Reality Check: The Facts on LTCI”; “Medicaid Planning”; “LTC Services”;
“Politics and Legislation”; “Demographics and Other Data”; and “CLTCR
News.”
Today’s Bullet is our “Thousand
Bullets Retrospective” Number 5 covering “Politics and Legislation.”
These “Politics and Legislation” Bullets cover commentary on news
from Congress, the Administration, HCFA, and the states. Read our summary
and check out the original at the link provided. Enjoy this walk down
memory lane.
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May 21, 1998:
CNN Update on "Send Granny's Lawyer to Jail Law". “The
Balanced Budget Act of 1997 criminalized professional assistance with
certain Medicaid asset transfers made to qualify clients for Medicaid's
long-term care benefits. This law, dubbed the ‘Send Granny's Lawyer to
Jail Law,’ is the latest in a series of attempts by eight U.S. Congresses
and three Presidents to curb aggressive Medicaid planning. As usual, the
Medicaid planning bar has mobilized to defeat the effort. The New York
State Bar Association is suing Attorney General Janet Reno in Federal
court to have the law declared unconstitutional. So far, the court has
issued a preliminary injunction pending a final judgment. In addition,
Attorney General Reno sent a letter to Speaker Gingrich and Congress
announcing the DOJ's decision neither to defend the constitutionality of
the law nor bring any criminal prosecutions under it. In a recent
national broadcast, CNN interpreted these events as putting Medicaid
planning ‘back on solid legal ground.’ Did it? What message do these
developments send to American taxpayers? Stephen Moses, President of the
Center for Long-Term Care Financing, is featured in the CNN story with a
brief comment.”
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March 3, 1999: U.S.
President Debates Center President. “The February 1999 issue
of McKnight's Long-Term Care News contains a point/ counterpoint column
entitled ‘Endorse the White House LTC Plan?’ In this article, U.S.
President Bill Clinton makes the case for his new four-point long-term
care plan. Center for Long-Term Care Financing President Stephen Moses
presents the counter argument. Excerpts from both positions
follow.”
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July 24, 2000:
Open Letter to HCFA Administrator.
“The Health Care Financing Administration is the U.S. government agency
that administers Medicaid and Medicare. An important role of the Center
for Long- Term Care Financing is to bring practices that undermine
responsible long-term care financing policy to the attention of the media
and the government agencies involved. What could be more irresponsible
than HCFA's participation in a continuing education seminar for attorneys
and accountants on how to artificially impoverish infirm seniors to get
them on Medicaid without spending down? The following open letter to the
HCFA Administrator in Washington, DC is self-explanatory.”
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October 2, 2001:
The Case for LTCI Tax Incentives. “Congressional action on additional
tax incentives for long-term care insurance (LTCI) appears unlikely in the
near term. Nevertheless, the American Academy of Actuaries' recently
released Issue Brief titled ‘Federal Tax Incentives for Long-Term Care
Insurance: Actuarial Issues and Public Policy Implications’ argues why tax
incentives for LTCI should remain a public policy priority for America
even in these turbulent times. The publication is available online in .pdf
format at
www.actuary.org/pdf/health/ltc_tax_080101.pdf.”
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December 10, 2002:
What About the Rate Stability of the U.S. Government? “The strongest
criticism levied today against private LTC insurance is that premiums on
in-place business may have to increase someday if claims experience turns
out to be worse than anticipated. This, critics say, could devastate
long-time policy holders who cannot afford steep premium increases in
their old age and who no longer qualify medically for new coverage. Well,
that is a valid concern that insurers and regulators are taking very
seriously. But what about the far more ambitious, and less achievable
promises that the U.S. Government has made to seniors through Social
Security and Medicare? David Wessel, in his November 21, 2002 Wall
Street Journal column ‘Capital,’ titled ‘U.S. Promises Are in the
Hole’ raised that question. [Excerpts follow in this
LTC Bullet.]”
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September 25, 2003:
Dire Warnings from the Feds “Have you read ‘Your Social Security
Statement’ lately. If not, you'd best take a close look soon and beware
the latest tidings from GAO as well.”
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February 4, 2004: Presidential
Hopefuls Give Lip Service to LTC. “When terrorism has been defeated,
America's new twin towers of vulnerability will be retirement and health
security for aging boomers. Yet, the leading candidates for President,
including the current incumbent, barely recognize the impending
mega-trauma of long-term care.”
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December 19, 2005:
House Passes Historic LTC Reform; Center Helps Tip Balance; AARP Spurned
“At 6:00 AM Eastern, after pulling an historic all-nighter, the House
passed long-term care reforms that exceeded our highest hopes. Bottom
line, we got everything the Senate proposed, plus everything the House
proposed, and then some. We're still on tenterhooks, however, waiting to
see if the full Senate will go along. Stay tuned to C-Span coverage of
the budget bill for the suspenseful conclusion of this public policy
cliffhanger.
“Your Center for Long-Term Care Reform
had a thing or two to do with this progress too. We spent half time in
Washington, DC this Summer briefing (primarily) Senate Finance Committee
staff on the importance of these reforms. Our ‘Rule of Law’ column titled
‘Welfare for the Well-To-Do’ ran over the weekend in the Wall Street
Journal and was widely circulated on Capitol Hill Saturday and Sunday
before the vote. Read on for a copy of that op-ed. As you know, we've
repeatedly exposed AARP's irresponsible attacks on members of Congress who
seek to save Medicaid for the poor by diverting the affluent to
responsible long-term care planning.”
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February 2, 2006:
LTC Victory: “The Deficit Reduction Act of 2006 passed yesterday
curbing Medicaid abuse and unleashing LTC Partnerships. Celebrate?
Sure. But don't take a victory lap until you consider what can go
wrong.”
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January 9, 2007: The
DRA Bullets: “Two Medicaid planners lament the DRA we praised and
defended in 21 LTC Bullets last year. Their whining, our replies
plus links to all the DRA Bullets [here].”
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May 15, 2008:
The LTC Score: “How the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ‘scores’
proposed legislation helps or hinders passage often inversely to the
proposals' merit. LTC tax deductibility is a case in point, [in this
LTC Bullet].”
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July 21, 2009:
How Much More Wrong Can They Get It?!: “Today, we bring to your
attention two examples of propaganda masquerading as research. Both come
from an outfit called ‘The SCAN Foundation.’”
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April 7, 2010:
CLASS Caveats: “When McKnight's editor Jim Berklan asked me last
Friday afternoon for a column on CLASS, I demurred. ‘Too busy,’ I said,
‘too tired.’ He would have none of it, so thanks to Jim we have the
following article to share with you today.
“We thank McKnight's for publishing
this piece and for permission to ‘reprint’ it here for our readers. Check
it out online at McKnight's site
here
(with picture) and do forward the link to many others.”
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October 28, 2011:
Remedial CLASS: “Wednesday's Congressional hearing on the brain dead
CLASS program illustrates the inefficacy of seeking political solutions to
the easily solvable LTC financing problem.”
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August 10, 2012:
Challenge Medicaid’s MOE Mandate: “ObamaCare threatens states’
federal Medicaid matching funds, arguably illegally since the SCOTUS
decision. Why it matters [in this
LTC Bullet].”
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June 21, 2013:
What Should the LTC Commission Do?: “How should the LTC Commission
prioritize its work and recommendations? Some thoughts [in this
LTC Bullet].”
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