Thursday, June 17, 2004
CBO acknowledges Medicaid's "crowding out" effect on long-term care insurance
[Financing Long-Term Care for the Elderly, Congressional Budget Office, April 2004.]
A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office takes a look at the troubles present and future in the long term care industry. Not only do the authors warn of the strain on its way as the baby boomers retire, but they also acknowledge how the relative accesibility of Medicaid reduces the likelihood of individuals providing for themselves:
Future demographic changes are likely to result in increased demand for long-term care, placing growing fiscal pressure on the public programs that pay for much of it today. Those changes may also indirectly affect informal care by reducing the number of people who might provide LTC services. In addition, the current financing structure creates incentives that discourage people from preparing to finance their own care, encouraging them to rely instead on public LTC insurance.
As Stephen Moses of the Center for Long Term Care Financing points out, the whole structure needs an overhaul:
Easy access to free or subsidized Medicaid and Medicare financing of nursing home and home health care for nearly four decades has anesthetized the public to the risk and cost of long-term care. Today, we're paying the price. We have a welfare-financed, nursing home based LTC system that is falling apart at the seams.
What's the answer? Target public LTC financing more narrowly to the genuinely needy and it will do a better job for fewer people. Everyone else will get the message, insure or use their home equity, and save the provider system by paying privately. Leave things as they are now, however, and the whole system will collapse when the boomers retire and approach senescence.
[See Stephen A. Moses, "Project Proposal: Controlling Medicaid Long-Term Care Costs," The Flint Hills Center.
Also, Matthew Hisrich, "Staying the Course: Medicaid Reform in Kansas," The Flint Hills Center.]
[Financing Long-Term Care for the Elderly, Congressional Budget Office, April 2004.]
A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office takes a look at the troubles present and future in the long term care industry. Not only do the authors warn of the strain on its way as the baby boomers retire, but they also acknowledge how the relative accesibility of Medicaid reduces the likelihood of individuals providing for themselves:
Future demographic changes are likely to result in increased demand for long-term care, placing growing fiscal pressure on the public programs that pay for much of it today. Those changes may also indirectly affect informal care by reducing the number of people who might provide LTC services. In addition, the current financing structure creates incentives that discourage people from preparing to finance their own care, encouraging them to rely instead on public LTC insurance.
As Stephen Moses of the Center for Long Term Care Financing points out, the whole structure needs an overhaul:
Easy access to free or subsidized Medicaid and Medicare financing of nursing home and home health care for nearly four decades has anesthetized the public to the risk and cost of long-term care. Today, we're paying the price. We have a welfare-financed, nursing home based LTC system that is falling apart at the seams.
What's the answer? Target public LTC financing more narrowly to the genuinely needy and it will do a better job for fewer people. Everyone else will get the message, insure or use their home equity, and save the provider system by paying privately. Leave things as they are now, however, and the whole system will collapse when the boomers retire and approach senescence.
[See Stephen A. Moses, "Project Proposal: Controlling Medicaid Long-Term Care Costs," The Flint Hills Center.
Also, Matthew Hisrich, "Staying the Course: Medicaid Reform in Kansas," The Flint Hills Center.]
Comments:
Post a Comment
