Rep. Tom Suozzi held a conference in Washington earlier this week to promote the new version of the Well-Being Insurance for Seniors to be At Home Act.
The bill would create a new public long-term care insurance program for people who exhaust private savings and private insurance after needing long-term care services for a long time.
Suozzi, a New York Democrat, has just one co-sponsor, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich. An earlier version of the WISH Act bill introduced in 2021 died in committee, and the new bill might not have much chance of advancing amid intense partisanship and budget pressure.
But Suozzi is hoping colleagues will see that encouraging people to plan for long-term care needs can improve federal and state government solvency, by reducing the pressure that rising Medicaid nursing home benefits spending will put on the program.
"Middle class elders will not have to spend down their savings and become reliant on Medicaid," Suozzi said. "Without legislative action, millions of older adults will become disabled and destitute and be placed in Medicaid nursing homes, causing Medicaid costs to skyrocket."
What it means: The government may not come up with a solution for long-term care needs to help most of your clients, but some members of Congress are still thinking about the topic.
Program details: Suozzi's bill would create a program that could provide about $4,000 per month for Americans who need long-term care for a long period, or enough to pay for about six hours of paid personal care per day.
The elimination period would range from one year for low-income people to five years for relatively high-income people.
The thinking: Suozzi is hoping the program would encourage consumers to buy private long-term care insurance to get themselves through the elimination period.
He also is hoping the program would help private LTCI issuers, by giving them a chance to provide a useful product that would be easier and safer to write than traditional LTCI policies with long benefit payment periods.
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