“Majority of Americans think government should pay for long-term care,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “A majority of Americans believe that the government should be primarily responsible for paying for the long-term care needs of older adults in the future but that the responsibility mainly will fall to the older adults themselves or to their families, according to the results of a poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. Fifty-five percent of the 2,524 people polled in December said that, 30 years from now, the government should be mostly responsible for paying for long-term care, whereas 28% said the older adults
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“LTC Hybrid Experience Looks Great: Milliman Actuaries,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “Many U.S. life insurers have been moving toward more sales of long-term care (LTC) benefits added to life insurance policies  or annuity contracts, and away from sales of stand-alone long-term care insurance (LTCI) policies. One question has been: Do the LTC hybrid products really produce better results for the issuers than stand-alone LTCI policies, or do the hybrid products simply free protection against long-term care risk from being associated with a product type that’s out of favor? Actuaries from Milliman Inc. have looked at a few years of early experience
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“Survey Identifies Long-Term Care Planning Resisters,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “SOA analysts found, for example, that 46% of the oldest old survey participants said that they had had no discussions about the type of lifestyle they wanted for the rest of their lives. About 34% said they had already made plans for coping with LTC costs, and 11% said they intended to do that. But 49% said they hadn’t planned for LTC costs and were not going to plan for LTC costs. Similarly, 42% of the adult children with oldest old parents said their parents had planned for LTC costs,
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“Private LTC insurers say fewer beneficiaries using plans for nursing homes than believed,” by Marty Stempniak, McKnight’s LTC News “Fewer people are using private long-term care insurance for subsidizing a skilled nursing facility stay, according to a new analysis. Only about 30% of claims for such plans ended with the beneficiaries in a SNF. The vast majority of LTC insurance claims both begin and end in an individual’s home, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, which based its study on 2018 claims data from seven insurers. … About 72% of claims last year ended with the death
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“Mind-blowing research that all skilled nursing providers can use,” by James M. Berklan, McKnight’s LTC News “The research into older baby boomers’ housing and care preferences is impactful. It should be able to inform new bargaining and marketing efforts for all kinds of nursing facilities, nonprofit and for-profit alike. The seminal statistic that is being pumped for all it’s worth is this: About 40% of respondents said that they would want to live in a care facility of some sort if cognitive or dementia problems occurred.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): We covered this
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“Video game may help slow dementia progression, address workforce issues,” by Lois A. Bowers, “Elmcroft Senior Living is helping researchers determine whether a robot-guided video game can help slow dementia progression by encouraging older adults to exercise and socialize. The technology also may provide an answer to caregiver shortages, researchers said.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Video games reduce dementia? No wonder we have so few teenagers with Alzheimer’s.
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