Pete Stark: “insurance coverage for long-term care services is a gaping hole in our nation's healthcare safety net. H.R. 4040, the…”

“insurance coverage for long-term care services is a gaping hole in our nation's healthcare safety net. H.R. 4040, the Long-term Care Security Act, will establish a long-term care insurance program for federal employees. It is a small step in the right direction. But, this bill is more notable for unmasking the shortcomings of private long-term care insurance than for meeting the long-term care needs of the American people. Americans deserve long-term care insurance that satisfies three criteria: reasonable cost, broad access and high quality. The main lesson of this bill is that the only way to achieve reasonable cost is to sacrifice both access and quality. We are in the dark about the actual provisions of the long-term care insurance plan that will ultimately be offered to federal employees. But the Office of Personnel Management's primary objective is clear to negotiate a competitive price. OPM has been upfront in telling us that limitations on access and quality of these policies will be necessary to negotiate this price. Will FEHBP's long-term care insurance program be available to all federal employees and their families? The answer is ``no''. One form of underwriting known as ``short-form'', will exclude active employees who are most likely to require long-term care services in the near future.”