“Aetna Inc. posted a big net loss Tuesday, partly due to the failure of a long-term care insurer. The Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer is reporting $381 million in net losses for the first quarter on $15.2 billion in revenue, compared with $737 million in net income on $15.7 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2016. . . . Aetna also recorded a $231 million charge related to its share of cost of dealing with the insolvency of Penn Treaty American Corp.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Ramifications ripple through the health insurance
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“High employment is one reason LT/PAC [Long-Term/Post- Acute Care] centers across the country are having trouble finding people to fill frontline health care roles. After recovering from an economic recession marked by thousands of layoffs, it’s now a buyer’s market for job seekers, especially those with caregiving skills. . . . ‘When we talk about what we can do to enhance their compensation, there are only two answers-one is increasing the minimum wage, and one is provider reimbursement,’ Findley [president of Iowa CareGivers, an advocacy group for nurse assistant] says. ‘We need to ask the question: What are the possibilities?
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“Kingsley Manor Retirement Community is home to grandmothers and gardeners, professors and painters, doctors and Zumba enthusiasts — and because it’s in Hollywood, you’ll also find film editors, dancers, and magicians. And a couple of students in their 20s, too. The students, Tina Guan and Sai Raj Kappari, are part of a unique collaboration between the retirement home and the University of Southern California’s gerontology school. The program, which has been around for more than 30 years, allows select students to live and eat for free in the retirement home. In exchange, they spend time with the residents — they
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“The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has sent a package of 10 proposals for reforming the U.S. long-term care finance system to Congress. The package of federal LTC policy options has been in the works for more than a year. Regulators included four options for improving the private long-term care insurance market; four aimed mainly at creating or strengthening other types of long-term care funding options; a plea for better alignment between federal and state rules; and a request for more federal support for general retirement security and long-term care planning awareness campaigns.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President,
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“Ohio’s nursing homes prevailed in the first round of state budget wrangling. When House Republicans this week revised the state budget bill, they yanked Gov. John Kasich’s plan to move all long-term care Medicaid patients to managed care plans next year. The budget amendment blocks such a move until 2021, which was suggested by nursing homes, assisted living facilities, area agencies on aging and other groups working with long-term care patients. Their main concern: A pilot program that includes some of these patients has had problems and the administration hasn’t shown it would work well for all long-term patients, many
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“If you’re working full-time, it’s virtually impossible to personally provide the level of care that a very sick family member or life partner needs. To fill that gap in care, many American workers rely on home health care aides, which can cost between $25 to $35 dollars per hour. If 24-hour, live-in care is needed, that can add up very fast – more than $100,000 over a six-month period – and that doesn’t include medications and additional health care costs. If you or a spouse is at high risk of a hereditary illness, long-term care insurance may be a viable
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“You’ve likely seen the TV commercials for reverse mortgages, with the late Fred Thompson, Henry Winkler and, lately, Tom Selleck. But just between us: Do you really understand how a reverse mortgage works? If not, don’t feel bad — in a March 2017 National Council on Aging survey, 66 percent of older homeowners said they’d need to do more research to understand a reverse mortgage line of credit. But I can offer some assistance to help explain how reverse mortgages work and cautions about them, based on a reverse mortgage webinar I just hosted.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses,
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