Dissenting Members of Federal LTC Commission Release Report
Five dissenting members of the federal Commission on Long-Term Care issued an alternative report (pdf) and recommendations to Congress on September 23.
The separate report came just five days after the commission’s official final report and recommendations were released.
The dissenting members cited the main commission’s failure to issue a consensus recommendation about how to finance a comprehensive long-term care services and supports (LTSS) system.
In their separate report, the five members recommend the creation of a “public social insurance program that is easily understood and navigated.”
“We are convinced that no real improvements to the current insufficient, disjointed array of LTSS and funding can be expected without developing social insurance financing,” said Judith Stein, one of the five authors of the alternate report, in a press release.
The report also calls on Congress to strengthen Medicaid and to reduce Medicare’s “counterproductive, outdated and unreasonable barriers to outpatient therapies, home health and skilled nursing facility care.”
“Planning and private insurance cannot meet the many exigencies of birth, injury, illness and advancing age that face individuals and families daily — often for a lifetime,” said Stein, the founder and executive director of Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc.
In addition to Stein, the other dissenting commission members were:
- Laphonza Butler, vice president of SEIU and president of SEIU-United Long Term Care
- Judith Feder, fellow at the Urban Institute and professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute
- Henry Claypool, executive vice president, American Association for People with Disabilities
- Lynnae Ruttledge, co-vice chair, National Council on Disability
The alternate report also calls on Congress to assure that “direct-care workers are paid a living wage, are well trained, and have opportunities for career advancement.”
— by Matthew Ozga
