“Meetings, rules and deadlines push long-term care law along,” by Elizabeth Hovde, Washington Policy Center Quote: “An investment subcommittee working on the WA Cares Fund — the state’s new long-term care entitlement program that comes with a payroll tax on workers beginning in January — met today. The meeting offered confirmation that the 2020 ballot-box defeat of a constitutional amendment set this program up for long-term failure. The constitutional amendment would have allowed the state to invest the program’s dollars into stocks and other methods of investment. Without such investment, the fund appears doomed, despite a payroll tax of 58 cents per
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“Healthcare infrastructure missing ‘centralized access point’ to long-term care: experts,” by Danielle Brown, McKnight’s LTC News Quote: “The healthcare industry is lacking a centralized, community-based resource that can easily direct families to long-term care services and support when the time arises, according to three prominent industry experts.”   LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: What else is new? Three experts propose an expensive “solution” with no clue how to pay for it, much less why the problem exists in the first place. We have no “centralized, community-based resource” because America relies on a fragmented, publicly
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“One Family’s Lessons Learned From a Decade of Caregiving,” by Claire Ansberry, Wall Street Journal Quote: “The family learned much along their decade-long caregiving journey, about setting up trusts, getting help in the home and respecting each other’s decisions. They think about a few things they would have done differently. … He worried about money, so Suzanne went with her dad to see an attorney specializing in elder law. He helped him set up a new trust to better preserve their assets in case either needed long-term care. It replaced an earlier trust set up shortly after Lucy was diagnosed
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“3 Experts Have Resigned From An FDA Committee Over Alzheimer’s Drug Approval,” by Bill Chappell, NPR Quote: “Three experts have now resigned from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee after the agency approved an Alzheimer’s drug called Aduhelm against the wishes of nearly every member on the panel. The drug — its generic name is aducanumab — was approved on Monday, setting off a variety of responses, from celebrations among some patients, caregivers and doctors to pointed questions about the drug’s benefits and costs.” Read full article in The Hill:  https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/557675-using-medicaid-to-protect-inheritances” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care
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“Taxpayers Protecting Inheritances,” by Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute Quote: “We try to keep an eye on hot health policy developments for you, but we also look ahead at emerging opportunities and dangers. Today we are focusing on the latter in an article just published in The Hill, written by leading long-term care expert Steve Moses and Galen Senior Fellow and Medicaid expert Brian Blase. The title says it all: ‘Using Medicaid to protect inheritances.’ … Here’s the issue: Many affluent Americans are hiring lawyers to protect their estates so they don’t have to spend their own money on long-term care.  Homes of more than
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“Most Americans Remain Unprepared For The Possibility Of Extended Care,”Advisor Magazine Quote:  “A new survey from Thrivent reveals a lack of awareness of the critical need to plan for long term care. Access the survey here. … Although the pandemic magnified the impact of long-term care on individuals and their caregivers’ daily lives, more than half of survey respondents (51%) said COVID-19 did not change their approach to extended care planning at all. This is especially concerning when considering the survey’s broader insights, which found that 70% of Americans have not documented their plans for extended care. Overall these survey results
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“Insurers Try to Avoid Collision With State LTCI Program,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor Quote:  “Private insurers are deciding to opt out of dancing with Washington state’s new WA Cares Fund universal long-term care (LTC) benefits program. The carriers say they want to make sure Washington state residents aren’t simply buying private coverage to avoid paying a new 0.58% payroll tax that’s supposed to cover the cost of the public LTC benefits program. The new tax is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2022. Residents can opt out of the public program, and the tax, if they can show they have had private
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“Comparing Medicare Advantage And Traditional Medicare: A Systematic Review,” by Rajender Agarwal, John Connolly, Shweta Gupta, and Amol S. Navathe, Health Affairs Quote:  “Medicare Advantage enrollment has almost doubled since 2010 and now accounts for more than a third of all Medicare beneficiaries. We performed a systematic review to compare Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare on key metrics. Evidence from forty-eight studies showed that in most or all comparisons, Medicare Advantage was associated with more preventive care visits, fewer hospital admissions and emergency department visits, shorter hospital and skilled nursing facility lengths-of-stay, and lower health care spending. Medicare Advantage outperformed
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“Planning For The Peak-65 Generation,” by Jason Fichtner, Advisor Magazine Quote:  “The greatest surge of new retirees in the nation’s history is fast approaching. In a mere three years, the U.S. will have more 65-year-olds than ever before, with more than 10,000 people turning 65 every day, a number that will increase to more than 12,000 a day until the nation reaches its ‘Peak 65’ moment in 2024.  And by 2030, 20 percent of the U.S. population will be age 65 or older, reaching the traditional age associated with retirement as our nation’s retirement system is at risk like never
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“Controversial Alzheimer’s Drug Wins FDA Approval,” by Judy George, MedPageToday Quote:  “The controversial Alzheimer’s treatment aducanumab (Aduhelm) won FDA approval Monday using the accelerated approval pathway. Under this pathway, the agency approves a drug for a serious or life-threatening illness that may provide meaningful therapeutic benefit over existing treatments when the drug is shown to have an effect on a surrogate endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit to patients and there remains some uncertainty about the drug’s clinical benefit.” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: Kind of a stretch.        
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