“How record Social Security cost-of-living adjustment will be impacted by high inflation, Medicare premiums,” by Lorie Konish, CNBC    Quote: “A 5.9% increase to Social Security benefits next year will be the highest in four decades. Yet inflation is climbing at a faster pace year-over-year at 6.8%, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data. Larger monthly checks may not offset the pressures of higher day-to-day prices, Medicare Part B premiums and taxes on benefits.”   LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: Inflation is the cruelest tax of all, quoth Milton Friedman. So much for
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“Who will have unmet long-term care needs?,” by Alicia H. Munnell, MarketWatch Quote: “The bottom line is that when Medicaid is added to family and financial resources, most Americans can meet most of their needs for long-term care. Participants in 401(k) plans should be somewhat more sanguine than they are about using their balances to support their consumption in retirement.”   LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: What this study and author don’t understand is that Medicaid is doing much more than supplementing “family and financial resources.” Medicaid largely supplants private LTC spending and relieves
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“Are Medicaid annuities sound crisis-planning tools?,” by Jeffrey Levine, Financial Planning   Quote: “At a high level, a Medicaid annuity is a tool that can allow a married couple to convert countable assets of the couple into the ‘ignored’ income of a healthy spouse. More specifically, when a married couple’s assets exceed the amount of countable assets they will be allowed to keep, they can ‘spend’ the excess assets by purchasing an annuity that pays income only to the healthy spouse. And since the healthy spouse’s income doesn’t prevent the institutional spouse from being eligible for Medicaid (thanks to the
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“Number of MA plans offering home care benefit to skyrocket in 2022,” by Diane Eastabrook, McKnight’s Home Care    Quote: “The number of Medicare Advantage plans offering home care as a supplemental benefit will increase by 70% next year compared to this year, according to  ATI Advisory. Tyler Overstreet Cromer, principal at the elder care advisory firm, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse that 729 MA plans will offer home care supplemental benefits in 2022 compared to 429 in 2021. … While the 729 MA plans offering home care benefits represent only a fraction of the 5,400 MA plans nationwide, Cromer said home care
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“Dual Eligible Beneficiaries Prefer Medicare Advantage Over FFS,” by Victoria Bailey, HealthPayerIntelligence    Quote: “Dual eligible beneficiaries were more likely to choose a Medicare Advantage plan over a fee-for-service Medicare plan, a study commissioned by Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) found. … Researchers found that 44 percent of dual eligible beneficiaries were enrolled in Medicare Advantage compared to 35 percent who were enrolled in fee-for-service Medicare. Additionally, 23 percent of all Medicare Advantage members were dual eligibles whereas 17 percent of fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries were dual eligibles. Dual eligible beneficiaries who were enrolled in Medicare Advantage were more likely to have a usual
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“2022 SSI and Spousal Impoverishment Standards,” Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services      Quote: “Included with this Informational Bulletin is the 2022 SSI and Spousal Impoverishment Standards chart that displays the new standards. These standards are also available on Medicaid.gov at https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/eligibility/spousal-impoverishment/index.html. States should update their standards in accordance with this information for the provisions that become effective on January 1, 2022.”     LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: Bottom line: more millionaires on Medicaid. The maximum home equity exemption jumped from $906,000 in 2021 to $955,000 in 2022. Sometimes inflation is as
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“Can Viagra Prevent Alzheimer’s?,” by Judy George, MedPage Today    Quote: “Sildenafil (Viagra, Revatio) may be a candidate drug to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggested.” He has founded Paragon to take these initiatives to a new level, including helping the next administration to be ready to implement an array of free-market health reform initiatives. His first presentation was this week to the American Legislative Exchange Conference in San Diego to release his first book, “Don’t Wait for Washington: How States Can Reform Health Care Today.”  It offers commonsense, innovative solutions about reforming state employee health plans, scaling back
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  “Increasing Medicaid’s Stagnant Asset Test For People Eligible For Medicare And Medicaid Will Help Vulnerable Seniors,” by Noelle Cornelio, Melissa Powell McInerney, Jennifer M. Mellor, Eric T. Roberts, and Lindsay M. Sabik, Health Affairs Quote: “Low-income Medicare beneficiaries rely on Medicaid for supplemental coverage but must meet income and asset tests to qualify. We examined states’ income and asset tests for full-benefit Medicaid during the period 2006–18 and examined how alternative asset tests would affect eligibility for community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries ages sixty-five and older. Most states have not updated the dollar limit of Medicaid’s asset test since 1989, making
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“Paragon Health Institute,” by Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute    Quote: “Paragon Health Institute:  Huge kudos to Galen Senior Fellow Brian Blase for launching his new think tank, Paragon Health Institute.  Brian served in the White House 2017-2019 as a top health policy advisor and mustered an enormous record of success. He has founded Paragon to take these initiatives to a new level, including helping the next administration to be ready to implement an array of free-market health reform initiatives. His first presentation was this week to the American Legislative Exchange Conference in San Diego to release his first book, “Don’t Wait for Washington: How
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“Freedom in the 50 States,” by William Ruger and Jason Sorens, Cato Institute    Quote: “The overall freedom ranking is a combination of personal and economic freedoms. … This edition again improves on the methodology for weighting and combining state and local policies to create a comprehensive index. Authors William Ruger and Jason Sorens introduce many new policy variables suggested by readers and changes in the broader policy environment (for example, vaping regulations). More than 230 policy variables and their sources remain available to the public on this website.”   LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care
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