“The availability of Medicaid presents a deterrent to some for the purchase of private long-term care insurance,” testified Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Ph.D., president of the American Action Forum, at a Senate Special Committee on Aging titled “The Future of Long-Term Care: Saving Money by Serving Seniors.” This was reported in an April 19, 2012 article in McKnight’s LTC News.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin is the former director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and he really “gets it” about long-term care financing. He also added that one way to do this would be for the government to provide incentives for long-term care insurance purchase.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s beliefs resonate with me and every other (Long-Term Care insurance) LTCi specialist I know. We feel that even though Medicaid provides inferior care (as I often document in this blog), it is relatively easy for almost everyone to access. Therefore,  people are poorly motivated to plan responsibly for their long-term care.

The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU), whose Long-Term Care Advisory Committee I serve on, wholeheartedly agrees with Mr. Holtz-Eakin.