“US healthcare spending for NFs and CCRCs to reach $337.4 billion by 2032, CMS says”

“US healthcare spending for NFs and CCRCs to reach $337.4 billion by 2032, CMS says,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnights Senior Living

“National health expenditures for nursing facilities and continuing care retirement communities are expected to reach $337.4 billion by 2032, according to new estimates released late Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of the Actuary. … The estimates — including spending by Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance and individuals out-of-pocket — were published online in the journal Health Affairs. Healthcare spending for US NFs and CCRCs was $181.1 billion in 2021 and $191.3 billion in 2022, according to CMS. It is projected to be $209.3 billion in 2023, $216.3 billion for 2024 and $237.6 billion for 2026 on the way to reaching $337.4 billion in 2032. … The full study is available here. It also will appear in the July issue of Health Affairs.”

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

So, NF plus CCRC spending will nearly double in the next decade. Ouch! But that fact obscures an interesting puzzle. Why are skilled nursing facility (NF) and CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) spending reported together? NFs get most of their funding from Medicaid and Medicare. CCRCs are mostly private-pay. Reporting them together makes it look like private pay is a much larger factor, and public funding much less than they really are. Think that’s a coincidence? Think again. In 2011, CMS smooshed NF and CCRC spending categories together in the National Health Expenditure (NHE) data reports. The clear intent was to support the myth that private LTC spend down is crushing consumers whereas government spending is relatively modest. Get it? We need a big new tax-funded LTC entitlement program to relieve widespread catastrophic LTC spend down and increase meager public spending. It’s all part of the big lie we’ve called the “LTC Narrative.”