America’s Long-Term Care Crisis: BPC Launches Initiative to Find a Politically and Fiscally Viable Path Forward to Improve the Financing and Delivery of Long-Term Care
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The Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) Health Project announced today a new initiative to find a politically viable and fiscally sustainable path forward to improve the financing and delivery of LTSS for America's aging population and working-age Americans with disabilities.
BPC's new Long-Term Care Initiative (LTCI) is led by former Senate Majority Leaders
"Nearly 70 percent of Americans who reach age 65 will, at some point, be unable to care for themselves without assistance," said Senator Daschle. "Issues of long-term care also affect millions of younger people with significant cognitive or physical functional limitations. Yet long-term care gets neither the public attention nor the policy focus that it deserves."
Today, the co-chairs of the new initiative released a white paper, America's Long-Term Care Crisis: Challenges in Financing and Delivery. The paper identifies the major challenges to the financing and delivery of long-term services and supports for seniors and individuals with disabilities under 65 including:
- The population needing long-term care is expected to double between now and 2050.
- Significant diversity in populations will need long-term care and will require a wide-range of assistance and types of services.
Medicaid , a safety net program, covers the cost of the majority of paid LTSS, at well over$100 billion annually. As the baby boom generation ages, this amount is projected to grow rapidly at a time when federal and state budgets will be stretched.- Limited options are available for individuals and families seeking to prepare for potential LTSS costs, and the private long-term care insurance market remains small relative to public programs as a source of LTSS financing.
The BPC initiative will work to find a policy pathway that addresses the nation's current and projected need for long-term care. It will focus on integrating and emphasizing the role of long-term care within organized systems of care delivery and payment, and exploring sustainable approaches for financing at the individual, family, state, and national levels.
"Currently, the U.S. lacks a comprehensive strategy for the financing and delivery of long-term care," said Secretary Thompson. "Individuals and family caregivers in need of long-term services and support often face limited coverage and ruinous out-of-pocket costs, and state and federal programs shoulder a growing and unsustainable financial burden of America's aging population."
The number of Americans estimated to need long-term care is expected to morethan double from 12 million in 2010 to 27 million in 2050. As such, public and private spending on long-term care for the elderly is projected to grow from 1.3 percent of GDP in 2010 to 3 percent of GDP in 2050.
"We as a nation do not have, either in the private or public sector, satisfactory mechanisms for helping people anticipate and pay for long-term care," said Dr.
"Without innovative changes in policy, the nation faces challenging trade-offs between spending to meet our commitments to older and low-income Americans and investments in the nation's future prosperity," said Senator Frist. "We must develop a realistic, yet politically viable set of policy options – including privately funded solutions – to take the burden off of government and instill greater efficiency in the way we deliver long-term care."
The work of the initiative will build on
A final report of LTCI policy recommendations, accompanied by a quantitative analysis of budget and distributional impacts, will be released later this year.
BPC's Long-Term Care Initiative is supported by a grant from
About the Bipartisan Policy Center
Founded in 2007 by former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders
SOURCE Bipartisan Policy Center
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