Monday, October 7, 2013

Policy Experts Agree: The U.S. System for Financing Long-Term Care is Crumbling


According to Forbes.com:  "America’s system for financing long-term care is failing, and the window for creating a payment system that works is rapidly closing. That was the conclusion of a morning-long expert session sponsored last week by the SCAN Foundation.
While the participants differed on specific solutions, most agreed on four key issues:
  • The existing system for funding paid long-term supports and services is built on a wobbly three-legged stool: low private savings, an underfunded Medicaid program, and a hobbled private long-term care insurance market.
  • The solution must include an affordable way for Americans to prefund their long-term care costs. This could include tapping financial assets or home equity, or buying insurance (either government, private, or some combination of both). Low-income people would require some form of safety net protection.
  • Any future system should finance high-quality long-term supports and services that are well-integrated with medical care. This is especially important since recipients of care services suffer from chronic disease or injury that often requires complex medical interventions.
  • There is currently no political consensus on how to do any of this."


The "three-legged stool" analogy mentioned above ignores a forth option:  Asset Protection Planning.

If you do not have enough money to pay for long term care, and if you cannot afford or qualify for long term care insurance, then protecting the assets you do have from long term care expenses may be your best plan.

You can learn more about Asset Protection Planning at my website www.SwintonLaw.com.





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