ORANJ
2009 Fall Plenary Meeting
On October 21, 2009 the Fall plenary meeting was held at Cedar Crest Village in Pompton Plains, NJ. The meeting attracted a record attendance, which was commented upon by all the speakers.
A brief business meeting included reports from all the standing committees and concluded with unanimous approval of the slate of candidates, put forward by Wink Livengood, Chair of the Nominating Committee.
Unfortunately, the scheduled morning speaker, Mr. Rick Grindrod, President and CEO of the Erickson Retirement Communities, had to cancel his commitment. In his place, Mr. Peter Desh of the NJ Department of Community Affairs in Trenton made a brief presentation, describing his department’s responsibilities. He also said that he and his staff were open at any time to questions and comments about CCRCs although, at present, ORANJ had no statutory authority to advise the governor on issues relating to CCRCs.
In the afternoon, Mr. Doug Pace, Chairman of the Long-Term Care Solution Campaign for the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) described the urgent need for a legislative solution to meet the long term care expenses for the 10 million Americans including six million over 65 who need help. Only 4% of the long term care expenses are covered by private insurance and 20% by Medicaid, leaving 52% paid by ourselves.
AAHSA’s solution is a broad based National Insurance Trust financed by premiums from an all-inclusive risk pool. The program would be actuarially sound because it would be prefunded by baby boomers long before they would need the coverage. The program would not cover all services but would provide a certain amount of cash (for example, $75 a day for up to one year) to a person age 21 or older, with qualifying disabilities (2 or more ADLs), after a five year vesting period. Premiums would rise if the claimant desired coverage for more than one year. Additional insurance benefits could be purchased to cover full costs of long term care.
In order to succeed, the program would require everyone’s participation in order to achieve a sufficiently large risk pool. The emphasis on cash benefits would widen the choices among services and permit payment to a neighbor or relative as a care giver.
AAHSA found that with the above parameters, we can create a national insurance trust that would pay a benefit of about $27,000 per year to each adult who needs assistance with two or more ADLs for about the cost of a large cup of coffee a day.
-Ellen Handler
