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Defining common ground: long term care financing reform in 2001.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2001 |
| Abstract | As a United States Senator from 1978 to 1995 I was privileged to serve for 16 years as a member of the Senate Finance Committee and, for two years in 1989–90, as a Vice Chair of the United States Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, which was tasked with reforming access to acute and long term care for all Americans. Named for Representative Claude Pepper, the nation's champion for the aged and people with disabilities, the Pepper Commission affirmed the need to use an insurance-based system to reform the financing of long term care. In the 10 years since the Pepper Commission released its report, A Call to Action, our population has gotten older, disability has increased, and care has become more expensive. Yet no one has responded to A Call to Action. Our national debates over Social Security and Medicare reform ignore long term care financing just as most people ignore it in their private lives until a loved one needs supportive care. In 2001, a new Congress and a new President provide unprecedented opportunity to make a commitment to reform long term care financing. As is often observed about the election of 2000, “Americans live in times of unprecedented prosperity.” But the election also underlined a sense of unease on the part of our people about the future. The unease comes for many people, in large part, from the knowledge that their economic resources are insufficient to provide extended care in the face of a debilitating incident or health condition. This is best reflected in the generation of Americans born in the years immediately after WWII, referred to as the Baby Boom generation. Most “Boomers” have parents whose retirement savings and security are beyond that of any previous American generation, but whose medical and long term care needs have the potential to eat quickly into the value of that savings and security. Throughout the last 65 years we have developed a system of social commitments, such as insurances, tax incentives, and health programs which were designed to assist people ensure their financial and retirement security. Unfortunately, long term care, which today poses a real and significant threat to that financial security, has never been integrated into our policy debates on individual financial or national economic security. Ninety percent of Americans are insured against medical expense and only 6% against long term care expenses. In our financing systems, both private and governmental, resource allocations favor acute medical needs over long term disability. Despite more deaths from chronic disease than acute incidents, Medicare still is geared towards providing coverage for acute illness rather than chronic or long-term care. As the great mass of our population ages we are witnessing rising speculation about the nation's financial security programs' ability to fulfill their promises. This speculation is the combination of fairly predictable demographic and cost impacts that will severely constrain those public policies built in the 1930's (Social Security) and 60's (Medicare/Medicaid) that were meant to help support financial security among our elderly. People living longer with more chronic illnesses, coupled with an increasing number of people under 65 utilizing long term care supports and services, demands we address long term care financing as a key component of the financial security, Medicare and Social Security reform debates. Given all of this, over sixty of the major national associations of long term care providers, insurers, and patient advocacy groups representing aging and disability concerns began Citizens For Long Term Care is a nonprofit coalition of long term care providers, consumer and patient advocates, insurers, workers and advocates for people with disabilities who seek to inform and educate policymakers about the need for long term care financing reform. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1097/00130535-200107000-00011 |
| PubMed reference number | 12812579 |
| Journal | Medline |
| Volume Number | 2 |
| Issue Number | 4 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.paltc.org/sites/default/files/08a_Finance%20Gen/08a_Defining%20Common%20Ground.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1097/00130535-200107000-00011 |
| Journal | Journal of the American Medical Directors Association |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
