“Serving The Forgotten Middle: The Need For Financing And Innovation,” by Anne Tumlinson, Health Affairs Blog

“In the ‘The Forgotten Middle: Many Middle-Income Seniors Will Have Insufficient Resources for Housing and Health Care,’ Caroline Pearson and coauthors share their analysis of the future financing gap for middle-income seniors — the gap between seniors housing options and the ability of future middle-class, high-need, older adults to afford them. They’ve identified a growing need for affordable supportive housing options for this group, especially as available family caregivers will decrease in relative terms. The authors present a number of good solutions. … They … urge consideration of a new Medicare Part E to cover long-term care, or the expansion of Medicaid home care benefits. … As enthusiastic as I am about all these options, I will confess that it makes me nervous to use public dollars to fund supportive housing options such as assisted living. Increased public financing might be accompanied with additional regulatory requirements, unintentionally discouraging private capital.”

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

Medicare and Medicaid paying for more LTC might discourage private capital? Well, of course it would, and has! It is why we have a public asleep about LTC risk and cost. It is why we have the problems addressed in “The Forgotten Middle: Many Middle-Income Seniors Will Have Insufficient Resources for Housing and Health Care,” the Health Affairs article that prompted this blog post. Watch for an LTC Bullet in a week or two that addresses that article and proposes better, more effective public policy solutions.