“New Analysis Finds Significant Financial Benefits Locked in Long-Term Care Insurance Policies Sold Fifteen to Twenty-Five Years Ago,” by ATI Advisory, Cision PR Newswire

Quote:

“ATI Advisory, a research and advisory services firm working to transform the delivery of healthcare and aging services for older adults, and LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston released new analysis that shows significant benefit value contained in private long-term care insurance policies in force today. … ‘We estimate that among individuals who bought policies between 1995 and 2005, nearly $800B in benefit value is available to pay for LTSS expenses. To put this in context, in 2016, the Medicaid program spent just over $100B annually on LTSS for older adults and individuals with physical disabilities,’ said lead researcher Marc Cohen. … See the full analysis and recommendations for states to protect individuals and public resources: https://atiadvisory.com/significant-financial-benefits-locked-in-ltci-policies-in-force-today/.”

 

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

This is much better than the usual social insurance pumping from most analysts. But it still displays no understanding of how Medicaid LTC eligibility actually works to discourage early and responsible long-term care planning. Easy access to Medicaid after care is needed, which occurs because of the program’s generous and elastic income and asset rules, prevented private long-term care insurance from having a much larger positive funding impact than this research documents it actually had. Target Medicaid to the needy as originally intended, cut the absurdly high home equity exemption down to a reasonable size, enforce estate recoveries and use some of the savings to incentivize LTC planning and insurance. Then see how much difference private insurance can make. For a full analysis, see Medicaid and Long-Term Care.