Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Can Medicaid still fill the LTC coverage gap?

With big changes in the government's healthcare policies on the horizon, most of the attention has focused on the new prescription drug benefit and the impact it will have on federal spending.
 
But a new report suggests that Medicaid's long-term care coverage is an even bigger concern than its prescription drug spending.
 
Report: 'Universal Public Insurance' Needed Because LTC coverage varies from state to state and tends to be inadequate in most states, beneficiaries are often left without access to quality care, especially in-home care, Georgetown Public Policy Institute professor and dean Judith Feder, Ph.D, wrote in "Long-Term Care and Medicaid: The Critical Role of Public Financing."
 
"Policy solutions that focus only on limiting public obligations for long-term care financing do our nation a disservice," Feder said.
 
Meeting all individuals' LTC needs throughout the nation will require new federal policies and a substantial investment of federal funds, she added.
 
The report also pushes "a core program of universal public insurance" to strengthen Medicaid's LTC safety net. Expert Questions LTC Solutions Vulnerable Americans' access to care is perhaps a more pertinent issue than policy makers' focus on LTC budgetary issues, Feder pointed out. Relying on private
insurance and beneficiaries' personal savings is an unreasonable approach to the LTC financing dilemma, she said.
 
The paper suggests that the federal government should play a bigger role in strengthening Medicaid. But, with an already strained Medicaid program and with $10 billion worth of budget cuts to boot, the state and federal governments must develop drastic, innovative reforms to keep the Medicaid program afloat.