Affordable Insurance Online

WASHINGTON- It is expected that the new health care legislation that will most likely be passed by the House will include a program of long-term care insurance coverage to aid seniors and disabled people to avoid having to enter nursing homes, according to senior Democrats.

While the program is still offered as voluntary, being designed to narrow the existing gap in the social safety net being overlooked during the present health care debate, it still has to deal with objections being presented by insurance companies, at least those that already are selling long-term care coverage, in addition to fiscal conservatives.

Republican Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey says that the bill of which he is a leading sponsor, will ultimately have this long-term care provision.

At the present time it is estimated that close to 10 million citizens are in need of long-term care services, and it is expected that this number will increase in the future with the advent of the aging baby boom generation. Still for most families whose senior members are no longer able to care for themselves, they have little in the way of a solution.

To care for an elder member of the family in long-term nursing homes the cost stands at about $70,000 a year, while the cost of home care stands at about $29 an hour. Medicare can be used for only temporary nursing home stays. For the average member of the middle classes it is necessary to go through one’s savings before being able to qualify for nursing home coverage through Medicaid.

The name of the current proposal is the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act. It was one of the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s Democrat from Massachusetts’s key goals to bring about its passage. The administration is also supporting its inclusion in any health care reform package.

The plan works by affording cash benefits of at least $50 a day to those who become disabled if they have paid a midst monthly premiums. The money is valuable for use to pay a home care attendant, or to purchase equipment and supplies, and can also be employed to make home improvements such as adding bathroom railings, or paid out to bring nursing home care costs.

The Congressional Budget Office is saying that such a program when financed through the payment of monthly premiums could be fiscally solvent during a 75-year period. This is based on the assumption of an initial monthly premium of $123 and assumes a $75 daily benefit. It would be required that you pay into the program for at last five years before receiving benefits. There would be an inflation clause for adjusting both premiums and benefits.

The congressional budget office is saying that the program will take in more money than it pays out during its first 10 years, and will have the effect of reducing the federal budget deficit by at least $73 billion. Therefore it is soon as an attractive option to lawmakers who are attempting to include a major expansion of health insurance coverage into the 10-year, $900 billion limit established by the President.