Description: Remarks on the attitudes underlying the stalling of health care reform legislation.

Description: Article on the history of the Long Term Care Discussion Group, a Washington DC-based venue for discussing long-term care and related issues for over 20 years.

Description: Rhode Island’s unique “global Medicaid waiver” pursues a potentially dangerous national policy trend: long-term care LTC rebalancing without strong eligibility controls. Resulting cost overruns could seriously damage the state’s social safety net. To maximize the global waiver’s opportunity, minimize its danger, and become a LTC financing model for the country, policy makers need to recognize the issues discussed in this report and pursue the recommended additional research and analysis.

Description: Announcement of changes to the LTC Section, and a preview of the articles in the December 2009 issue of Long Term Care News, with topics including Health care reform and LTC vs. Medicaid.

Description: A suggestion to review and reassess LTC pricing of the last three decades, in light of dangerously inadequate ratesetting in the early years, and the NAIC's introduction of a model rate stability law.

Description: Corin Chapman explores the many perspectives to consider when determining appropriate insurance regulation.

Description: Stakeholders in a specific state (Minnesota) were interviewed about the potential value -- and obstacles -- of a catastrophic backstop program to handle long term care (LTC) financing needs. The design would entail a payroll deduction which would produce a fund to pay LTC expenses once a deductible period (of 1 to 4 years, depending on income) was reached. This design was believed to encourage enrollees to cover the front end better than done today, whether by private insurance or other means.

Description: A consideration of the issues involved in adding long-term care provisions to the social security system in France, and how the conditions differ from those in the U.S.

Description: Recently, the SCAN Foundation, AARP, LeadingAge, and HHS funded economic modeling conducted by Milliman and the Urban Institute around LTC reform elements. The LTC industry has over the years also generated ideas to address the on-coming expansion of LTC needs in the U.S. For this article, we have brought together three individuals who have long involvement with LTC financing to discuss some of the recent ideas and provide some perspectives on their pluses and minuses.

Description: Family members who care for people with dementia need a wide range of support services to help them do the important work of care giving at home.