Scott Harrison Is Tired of Long-Term Care Policy Think Tanks

An insurance policy shaper who helped change how life insurers manage their reserves has come up with a new idea: establishing an organization that will get down in the legislative trenches and change how the United States handles long-term care finance.

The policy shaper, Scott Harrison, was one of the most visible promoters of the concept of “principles-based reserving,” or the idea of having life insurers set their reserves based on modern statistical forecasting and the judgment of actuaries, rather than static formulas.

He won that fight: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has adopted principles-based reserving models.

(Related: Insurers Mark Significant Regulatory Shift)

Harrison has been looking for something else to do. He has started to hone in on the concept of taking some of the long-term care finance reform ideas in all of those many, many long-term care think tank reports and trying to get one or more of those ideas turned into a real program.

Harrison said last week, in an interview, that he’s dubbed his new, embryonic organization a “do tank,” because the goal will be to do things, as opposed to thinking about what someone else should do.

At this point, in spite of all of the hundreds of pages of reports long-term care finance policy think tanks have put out over the past decade, and all of the many concrete proposals proposed, “I don’t see much legislative activity at all,” Harrison said.