“The truth behind long-term care insurance,” by Brendan Williams, McKnight’s LTC News

“For some, long-term care insurance has long been viewed, despite all evidence to the contrary, as a nostrum to fix what ails long-term care.  There has been danger in that thinking, as policymakers parsimonious on Medicaid are happy to embrace magical thinking about alternative funding.  But it is worth asking whether it is long past time to put childish things aside, given what ails this insurance market.”

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

Good guy (former Washington Health Care Association Exec.) but poorly reasoned column. Medicaid is not the salvation of long-term care; it’s the cause of most of its problems, including the difficulties LTC insurance faces. Medicaid made nursing home care virtually free resulting in institutional bias, inadequate funding and staffing, poor quality and consumer indifference to LTC planning. Add in government making LTCI unprofitable by forcing artificially low interest rates and you can see the real source of the problem:  government interference in the LTC service delivery and financing market.

The truth behind long-term care insurance

#long-term
#goldencareagent