LeadingAge has released the new Pathways Report, Perspectives on the Challenges of Financing Long-Term Care Financing, based on the work funded by LeadingAge, AARP and the SCAN Foundation. The research, conducted by the Urban Institute and Milliman, Inc., examined alternative approaches to long term care financing reform.

 

According to LeadingAge CEO Katie Smith Sloan, “while no single solution emerged from the three approaches studied, the research clearly demonstrates that the nation’s current methods for financing long term services and supports (LTSS) are unsustainable, irrational and unfair for individuals and families. LeadingAge believes America needs a fairer and more rational financing system to ensure access to quality long term services and supports. We support further analysis of different options, but feel strongly that a mandatory, universal insurance approach can optimize coverage and minimize costs.”

 

Sloan states that LeadingAge is committed to facilitating further dialogue needed to move this issue forward with the aim to develop a new financing system that is insurance based and guided by the principles of rationality, equity, and affordability. Later this month, Sloan will take this report to Capitol Hill to talk with policy makers about the urgency of finding workable solutions so that everyone receives the quality care they deserve without becoming impoverished in the process.