Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen | Houston, TX
Helping you make informed LTC decisions
Great new AARP gives monetary value to LTC in TX: https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/ltc/2012/across-the-states-2012-texas-AARP-ppi-ltc.pdf
Reports for other states may be found at https://www.aarp.org/home-garden/livable-communities/info-09-2012/across-the-states-2012-profiles-of-long-term-services-supports-AARP-ppi-ltc.html
A newly published survey called “Raising Expectations” by AARP, The Commonwealth Fund and the SCAN Foundation, is a report card for nursing facilities across the country.
The news for us in Texas isn’t good, reports Howard Gleckman in this Forbes piece on this new study, published June 25, 2014. The research finds that on average the most affordable facilities are in Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, Louisiana, and Arkansas. But nearly half of those states—Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas, and Texas– rank in the bottom 10 for at least 2 of the study’s 3 quality measures. Texas and Oklahoma rank near the bottom for all three.
Most of Mr. Gleckman’s piece describes how unable most Americans are to pay for their own long-term care. I will concentrate instead the correlation between low cost and low quality care.
In Texas, Medicaid nursing home reimbursement is one of the lowest in the country.
Nursing homes are not where anyone with great wealth or long-term care insurance chooses to receive care.
Here in Houston, we’ve made headlines lately with a spate of nursing home murders.
If nursing homes are paid less than it costs them to actually provide care (as they are in Texas), the result is a cascade of problems, including but not limited to insufficient, underpaid caregivers, inappropriate admissions (accepting extremely needful people in order to get the census up), increased safety and health hazards, patient negligence and warehousing, the list goes on.
The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (www.aaltci.org) states that approximately 80 percent of long-term care insurance (LTCi) claims are not for nursing home care. LTCi gives policyholders the ability to instead stay at home or access assisted living. My own experience is that very few of the approximately 300 LTCi client claims I’ve seen paid were for nursing home care.
Because a great many people choose to ignore the need for responsible long-term care planning and are therefore unprepared to pay when the need for care arises, the majority of long-term care in the US is paid for by Medicaid (Welfare). If you don’t plan and you don’t own LTCi, you are greatly increasing your odds of ending up in a nursing home.
For a good explanation of how Social Security’s original motives have been subverted, read the April 18, 2012 Washington Post editorial by Robert J. Samuelson. This subversion has caused Social Security to “morph” into an entitlement program, and worse, it has created entitlement expectations that are unsustainable.
Here’s a quote, “What we have is a vast welfare program grafted onto the rhetoric and psychology of a contributory pension. The result is entitlement. Unsurprisingly, AARP’s advertising slogan is “You’ve earned a say” on Social Security. The trouble is that contributions weren’t saved. They went to past beneficiaries. The $2.6 trillion in the Social Security trust fund at year-end 2010 sounds like a lot but equals slightly more than three years of benefits.”
“In 2009, about 42.1 million family caregivers in the U.S. provided care to an adult with limitations in daily activities at any given point in time, and about 61.6 million provided care at some time during the year,” according to the AARP Public Policy Institute’s July 2011 update. (See Valuing the Invaluable: 2011 Update The Growing Contributions and Costs of Family Caregiving, p. 1, Lynn Feinberg, Susan C. Reinhard, Ari Houser, and Rita Choula. AARP Public Policy Institute: 601 E Street, NW Washington DC 20049.)
The estimated economic value of their unpaid contributions was approximately $450 billion in 2009, up from an estimated $375 billion in 2007. The report also explains the contributions of family caregivers, details the costs and consequences of providing family care, and provides policy recommendations to better support caregiving families.
Family support is critical to remaining in one’s home and in the community, but often comes at substantial costs to caregivers themselves, to their families, and to society. If family caregivers were no longer available, the economic cost to the U.S. health care and long-term services and supports (LTSS) systems would increase astronomically.
When unpaid family caregivers become less available due to changing family demographics, imagine the battles in Washington over how to fund long-term care for the legions of elderly without LTCi!
"Honey - Whenever I need a clarification regarding our “LTC” you are “Johnny on the spot” responding in a very prompt manner, reassuring me, informing me in a concise way, patient with me as I massage the understanding in my own words. Your knowledge is current and expressed with confidence, offered in your conscientious and upbeat personality. 
It is a pleasure to work with you. Thank you for your expertise." ~ Nancy Damon, Houston, TX
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Here’s how to reach me:
Honey Leveen, LUTCF, CLTC, LTCP
“The Queen, by Self-Proclamation, of Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCi)”
404 Royal Bonnet
Ft. Myers, FL 33908
Phone: 713-988-4671
Fax: 281-829-7177
Email: honey@honeyleveen.com
Email: honey@honeyleveen.com