Nearly 70 percent of all older Americans will need some long-term care at some point in their lives, such as help with basic activities like bathing or eating to more complex nursing or memory care.
Who pays for it in the United States (US)?
Right now, long-term care is financed by a fragmented mix of public programs, private insurance, and out-of-pocket spending that totals more than $560 billion annually.
Our current system requires families to pay out-of-pocket for that care until they exhaust their savings and turn to Medicaid. That creates significant financial hardship for families, and growing strain for federal and state budgets alike.
Policymakers have put forth a series of “silver bullet” policy solutions in recent decades to alleviate the burden on families and public programs, but none have fully addressed the problem. In a recent piece for McKnight’s Long-term Care News, I argue we need a layered approach instead.
“The problem isn’t a lack of ideas [for long-term care coverage], then. It’s that we keep looking for a single solution to a problem that is multi-dimensional and unfolds over time. People have modest needs at first, which then grow into more significant needs and sustained costs for a middle period of care and can extend, for a small share, into end-stage care and financial catastrophe. No single policy or product is well-suited to cover all three phases.”
You can read more here.
