{"id":10050,"date":"2009-06-09T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2009-06-09T10:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/2009-06-0609-001\/"},"modified":"2018-05-09T18:48:07","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T22:48:07","slug":"2009-06-0609-001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/2009-06-0609-001\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurance Leader Praises Senator Kennedy for Promoting Long-Term Care Aid for All Americans as Part of Health Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Diverging from Kennedy On Some Points, Denise Gott Agrees that Everyone Needs Protection for Longer-Lasting Illnesses and Disabilities, Not Just Acute Ones<\/em><\/p>\n

KIRKLAND, Wash., June 9 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The traditionally conservative insurance industry can come to terms with a Democratic Congress on health reform, according to one insurance leader, Denise Gott, who today heaped praise on Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) for his crusading efforts. “He sees more clearly than anyone the need to reform not only acute health care, but long-term care, which affects the quality of life and pocketbooks of virtually every American family,” she says. Gott is Chairman of the Board of LTC Financial Partners LLC (LTCFP) — www.ltcfp.com<\/a> — one of the nation’s largest and most experienced long-term care insurance agencies.<\/p>\n

\"DeniseThe Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which Kennedy chairs, is now working on a comprehensive health bill, the “The American Health Choices Act,” that is expected to include key provisions covering long-term care. “I agree with the major thrust, that we need a program embracing the long-term care needs of all Americans,” Gott says, “but have concerns on two points.” They are —<\/p>\n

1. The “public option” which would create a government-run program insuring people in competition with private carriers.<\/p>\n

GOTT’S CONCERNS: “Instead of competing with insurance companies, unfairly I believe, I’d rather have the government offer new tax incentives to make long-term care policies more affordable.” She points to recently-introduced bills, H.R. 2096 and S. 702, that would allow LTC insurance to be included in employer-sponsored cafeteria plans and flexible spending accounts, enabling people to pay their LTC premiums using pre-tax dollars. “These bills, with bipartisan sponsorship, show the way to go,” she says.<\/p>\n

“However, if Kennedy and Congress are determined to offer a public option for long term care, competing with the private plans, there’s a way it could work. Instead of automatically enrolling everyone in the public LTC option, the government would have people make one of the following choices: the public option, or a private plan (which they could choose from any state-certified carrier), or the public option plus a supplemental private plan.” The benefit amount of the public option is expected to be $50 to $100 a day depending on the degree of disability. “This isn’t enough to cover all one’s care needs. A minimal private plan pays $200 a day.”<\/p>\n

2. New “insurance exchanges” where people would shop for a policy from multiple carriers.<\/p>\n

GOTT’S CONCERNS: “This might be a good idea but could turn bad if the government itself designs and runs it. As an analogy, imagine — before the days of YouTube — Washington creating a video-sharing service. How good would it be with bureaucratic coders and no competition to assure constant improvement?” Gott might approve, however, of a plan that offers guidelines and incentives for entrepreneurs to create insurance-selection exchanges.<\/p>\n

“There are many complexities that government employees aren’t likely to take into account,” she says. “Selecting the right long-term care policy is much more important and complex than buying a car. And who would buy their car just by going to a website? Also, a government exchange would probably send people directly to insurance carriers, as the online prescription-drug system did. This would be like sending people to auto manufacturers for their cars, when auto agencies, with their hand-holding and value-added services, are the right destination.” In Gott’s view, a proper exchange for long-term care insurance would send people to independent agents who know which carriers are soundest, and can advise on the right policy features at the lowest cost.<\/p>\n

“With the online system for choosing a prescription-drug plan, people went crazy with all the complexity,” Gott says. “They’d really tear their hair out with a long-term care choice system. An informed, unbiased advisor is absolutely essential.”<\/p>\n

When rectified with another plan being crafted by the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy’s plan could gain momentum. But will it find enough bipartisan support to pass? “With the right adjustments, I think so,” says Gott. “With the tweaks I suggest, I believe it would be much more acceptable to Republicans and conservative Democrats.”<\/p>\n

On the central point she agrees 100 percent with Senator Kennedy: “We desperately need reform, for long-term care as well as acute health care. About 46 million Americans lack regular health insurance, but many times that number lack long-term care insurance. Only about 9 million have it out of a population of more than 300 million; and among those at greatest risk, 45 and older, more than 90 percent go uncovered.”<\/p>\n

Gott encourages concerned citizens to make their views known to their representatives in Congress. Legislators’ phone numbers and fill-in forms may be found at — www.usa.gov\/Contact\/Elected.shtml<\/a>. “Women in particular should speak up,” Gott says. “They’re at risk even when they themselves stay well and fit. Typically they’re the ones forced into unpaid care giving when a family member suddenly develops a care need.”<\/p>\n

News issued by: LTC Financial Partners LLC<\/p>\n

\"LTC<\/p>\n

Original Image: https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/images\/09-0609-DeniseGott_72dpi.jpg<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

# # # <\/p>\n

Original Story ID: (5060) :: 2009-06-0609-001<\/small><\/p>\n

Original Keywords: Denise Gott, LTC Financial Partners LLC, acute health care, long-term care, insurance, LTCi, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senate Finance Committee, Senator Kennedy, H.R. 2096 and S. 702, LTCFP, B-NAB LTC Financial Partners LLC <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KIRKLAND, Wash. (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The traditionally conservative insurance industry can come to terms with a Democratic Congress on health reform, according to one insurance leader, Denise Gott, who today heaped praise on Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) for his crusading efforts. ‘He sees more clearly than anyone the need to reform not only acute health care, but long-term care, which affects the quality of life and pocketbooks of virtually every American family,’ she says. Gott is Chairman of the Board of LTC Financial Partners LLC (LTCFP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9780,"featured_media":8177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,134,61,105,546,455,491,19,354],"tags":[949],"class_list":["post-10050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","category-general-editorial-news","category-health-medical-news","category-insurance-news","category-kirkland-news","category-long-term-care-news","category-opinion-commentary","category-us-news","category-washington-state-news","tag-ltc-financial-partners","has-post-title","has-post-date","no-post-category","no-post-tag","no-post-comment","has-post-author"],"acf":[],"views":3758,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9780"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.send2press.com\/wire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}