How to Advocate for LTC Financing

I’m delighted you are among the folks willing to help raise long-term care financing to public and policymaker attention.  We need to generate the will to confront the issues and shape arrangements in the US so that most people can handle their own long-term care costs, and everyone can count on having the basics of a decent life in old age.  We’ll need a more sustained Social Security income system and more efficient and reliable local care arrangements, but we’ll also need more funds in savings and insurance, both public and private. Here are links to resources that will prove useful for your efforts to move long-term care financing onto the policy table.  Let me know of other resources you find or that you find that you need, and please suggest enhancements to these (DrJoanneLynn@gmail.com).

• Facts about financing eldercare https://medicaring.org/faq/ltss-financing/
• Getting the information out
  1. How to contact a Member of Congress (and their staff)
  2. Learn how to write an effective op-ed or letter to the editor
• On federal catastrophic long-term care insurance
  1. The data behind the concept https://www.umb.edu/mccormack.umb.edu/uploads/gerontology/Public_Catastrophic_Insurance_Paper_for_Bipartisan_Policy_Center_1-25-2018.pdf
  2. Endorsed in the National Academy of Medicine report on Nursing Homes, see, e.g., at page 520 ff. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/26526/chapter/1
• Specifically, advocate for the WISH Act, HR 4289

The WISH Act, H.R. 4289, with a section-by-section summary and a Powerpoint presentation https://suozzi.house.gov/media/press-releases/suozzi-introduces-legislation-transform-american-elder-care-create-federal-long

Very useful overview, Cohen M and Butler S, The Middle Ground For Fixing Long-Term Care Costs: The WISH Act https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210729.585743/full/

• Comparing WISH and the withdrawn CLASS Act, for persons who ask

What we aim to accomplish –

• First and foremost – to make the financing of long-term care into an inescapable policy issue – visible in election campaigns, often addressed in news media, and a topic that many organizations take up.
• But also – to get multiple sponsors for the WISH Act (perhaps as modified and perhaps also other useful long-term care financing bills) in Congress
• And to have employers, insurance companies, and organizations representing the interests of persons living with disabilities and older adults all actively supporting federal catastrophic long-term care insurance.