Ohio Seeks Comments on Proposed LTCI Change

Officials say they are proposing the change at the suggestion of some LTCI carriers.

“Certain insurers asserted that due to the requirement in the rule that only currently marketed policies can be used, a number of persons whose existing long term care insurance policies conformed in every other way with the partnership requirements, or could be made to conform by a minimal rider, could not afford or could not be underwritten under the newer partnership policies’ increased benefits at their attained ages, and that this was not fair,” officials say.

A partnership program gives a state a mechanism to encourage residents to buy private LTCI coverage by letting holders of qualified coverage to use the private benefits to meet the eligibility requirements for Medicaid nursing home benefits.

Medicaid programs normally are supposed to pay for nursing home care only for poor people who have very few assets.

In Ohio, a holder of LTCI partnership coverage can keep a dollar of personal assets for every dollar of benefits paid by the LTCI policy, officials say.

Originally, only 4 states offered partnership pilot programs. Congress let other states offer partnership programs when it passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.