Tag: state budget shortfalls

What your state lets you keep, effective 1/1/2023

This is a table that shows the minimum assets and income each state allows nursing-home residents and their spouses to keep.

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The Partnership for Long-Term Care

The idea of the Long-Term Care Partnership is to provide a way for the Medicaid program to work together with private long-term care insurance to help those people who are caught in the middle: they can’t afford to pay the cost of the care or even the cost of a long-term care insurance policy with unlimited benefits, yet their assets are too high to qualify for Medicaid to pay their long-term care expenses. Many middle-income workers and retirees find themselves in this position.

Participating insurance companies in the Partnership recognize the needs of these middle-income Americans by providing LTC insurance policies that have built-in consumer protection benefit standards, and participating states cooperate by allowing these policyholders to access Medicaid without spending down their assets almost to poverty level if the insurance benefits run out.

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Dave Ramsey helps so many people but he is way off on when to buy LTC coverage

If Dave could just grasp that telling people to wait until their 60s can not only price them out of the market, it can make them uninsurable so that no amount of money will buy it for them. Sadly, the 60 year olds who try and fail to get LTC insurance are very likely to lose the financial peace for which they turned to him to start with because long-term care is the most common reason people outlive their savings.

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How the Supreme Court Decision Affects Long-Term Care Insurance

The Supreme Court decision on June 28, 2012 makes it even more critical for people to own long-term care insurance as it is highly questionable as to how many Medicaid dollars will be there for LTC in the future. In 20-30 years, people who need long-term care will be sharply divided between haves and have-nots. Many people who elected to self-insure will be squarely in the middle of the have-not bucket as the cost of care soars to $1000 a day in 30 years. Money buys choices. Without long-term care insurance, most families simply won’t have the money to buy care and their worst nightmare will happen as the burden for their care falls on their children and grandchildren.

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What Happened to the New Government Program That Was Supposed to Pay for Long-Term Care?

The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act was a provision in the 2010 health care reform act (Public Law 111-148) that was supposed to provide an average benefit of $50 a day depending on the level of impairment with a lifetime (unlimited) benefit period. This benefit would grow each year based on Urban …

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The CLASS Act (YES, You Still Need Long‐Term Care Insurance!!)

The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act is a provision in Section 8002 of the new health care reform bill (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Public Law 111‐148) enacted March 23, 2010. The CLASS Act is supposed to provide a small cash benefit of an average of $50 a day with a lifetime benefit period depending on the level of impairment. For example, needing help with four Activities of Daily Living vs. two would result in an increased benefit. This benefit is guaranteed issue and is designed to help people with limitations stay in the community instead of going to a nursing home. The program is supposed to be funded solely by premiums paid by employees who do not opt out via payroll deductions by the employers who choose to participate.

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Ask Your Employer to Offer Long-Term Care Insurance

Ask your employer to offer long-term care insurance that is qualified for the Long-Term Care Partnership to employees 18+ to help your family AND your state budget.

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State Budget Shortfalls and State-Specific Budget Cuts

Public-Private Long-Term Care Insurance Plans will have a tremendously positive impact on state budgets if we educate employers to offer it now to all employees to decrease cuts in other services like you see here.

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States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact

By Elizabeth McNichol, Phil Oliff, and Nicholas Johnson

The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. State tax collections, adjusted for inflation, are now 12 percent below pre-recession levels, while the need for state-funded services has not declined. As a result, even after making very deep spending cuts over the last two years, states continue to face large budget gaps.

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An Update on State Budget Cuts

By Nicholas Johnson, Phil Oliff, and Erica Williams

With tax revenue still declining as a result of the recession and budget reserves largely drained, the vast majority of states have made spending cuts that hurt families and reduce necessary services. These cuts, in turn, have deepened states’ economic problems because families and businesses have less to spend.

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