|
1/12/2024,
“Public
policy must address flaws in long-term care financing, experts say,”
by Kathleen Steele Gaivin, McKnights Senior Living and McKnights
Business Daily
Quote:
“Public policy needs to address flaws in Medicaid funding and encourage
private planning for long-term care, according to experts speaking Tuesday
during a panel
discussion hosted by the Paragon
Health Institute. ‘Long-term care in America is broken. It’s marked by
nursing home bias, too little home care, dubious access and quality,
inadequate [funding,] caregiver shortages, stressed out unpaid family
caregivers and growing complaints of structural racism,” said
Stephen Moses, president of the
Center for Long-Term Care Reform and author of ‘Long-Term
Care: The Problem’ and ‘Long-Term
Care: The Solution.’ …
According to Moses, Medicaid created a ‘moral hazard’ that
discourages consumers from using their private savings to pay for their
long-term healthcare needs, and it places the burden on taxpayers to pay
for such expenses. …
“Richard W. Johnson, senior fellow and director of the Program on
Retirement Policy at the Urban Institute, noted that ‘about half the
population will never use paid long-term care.’ For those who do need
professional care, he said, the risks are not spread evenly across the
population. …
‘One thing I would emphasize is the heterogeneity among the older
population, and in particular, that there’s a lot of people who are going
to be just fine, but there’s a small group who are going to develop
serious long-term care needs, and many of them simply do not have the
funds to prepare themselves for that eventuality, he added. …
“Mark J. Warshawsky, senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute and former deputy commissioner for retirement and
disability policy at the Social Security Administration, said that he
largely agreed with Moses’ assessment of the public funding challenge. ‘I
think he has accurately identified the Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde aspect of
Medicaid for long-term care benefits,’ Warshawsky said. ‘Although on the
one hand, it is marketed and it’s understood in the public mind and among
policymakers as a program for the poor, when it comes to long-term care,
the reality is that it’s a program for not just the poor, but for the
middle class, the upper middle class, and even the wealthy,’ he added.”
LTC Comment:
We thank McKnights and reporter Kathleen Steele Gaivin for covering
Paragon Health Institute’s
January 9 “virtual LTC event” with such care and
insight. Paragon intends to follow up with another program focused on
long-term care in the future. In the meantime, stay tuned to “The
Moses LTC Blog”
and
Paragon’s weekly
newsletter
for further developments.
Stephen A. Moses, President
Center for Long-Term Care Reform
2212 Queen Anne Avenue North, #110
Seattle, WA 98109
Office: 206-283-7036
Fax: 206-283-6536
Email:
smoses@centerltc.com
Web site:
www.centerltc.com
The
Center for Long-Term Care Reform is a private institute dedicated to
ensuring quality long-term care for all Americans. Sign up for our LTC
Bullets online newsletter and become a member of the Center at
www.centerltc.com. |
