What Progress Did the Congressionally-Appointed Long Term Care Commission Make: An Interview with Judy Feder (September 30th)

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As part of last year's "fiscal cliff" agreement the Congress created a Long Term Care/LTC Commission tasked to make recommendations to improve LTC delivery.   (The Commission was created largely as a result of the demise of the ACA's CLASS Act.  See the related August 5th interview with Connie Garner.)  Today more than 12 million Americans rely on LTC services and this number will grow dramatically as baby boomers age.  Currently however only impoverished older Americans and the disabled are covered via state Medicaid programs and because few companies offer LTC policies (and because annual premiums are expensive), only about 8 million Americans have private LTC insurance.  As a result LTC services are provided moreover informally by 42 million Americans at an AARP estimated out-of-pocket cost of $450 billion annually.  In mid-September the 15-member LTC Commission voted 9-6 in approving 28 recommendations.  The six dissenting votes were largely due to Commission's failure to address the most substantive LTC issue, how best to pay for LTC services. 

During this 22-minute interview Prof. Feder discusses the Commission's findings generally.  Moreover she details how/why the Commission failed to address structural financing for LTC.  She also discusses the views of the six Republican-nominated commission members, how/why private insurance policies are limited and/or inadequate, what a publically funded LTC insurance policy would look like and prospects for future work conducted by a subsequent national committee and the Congress.                

Judy Feder is a Professor of Public Policy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.  Prof. Feder began her career at the Brookings Institution, continued at the Urban Institute, and, since 1984 has worked at Georgetown University.  She served as Staff Director to the Congressional Pepper Commission in 1989-90, served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services in President Bill Clinton’s first term; as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and today as an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute.  Prof. Feder is an member of the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Public Administration, the National Academy of Social Insurance, she's a former chair and board member of AcademyHealth, the Hamilton Project’s Advisory Council and a senior advisor to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.  She received her B.A. from Brandeis University and her master's and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

The Commission's report can be found via: http://www.ltccommission.senate.gov/.  Prof Feder, et al., recommendations can be found at: http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/LTCCAlternativeReport.pdf.

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