Major changes needed in Medicaid, says Center for Retirement Research

Here’s a thought-provoking new report: Medicaid and Long-Term Care: How Will Rising Costs Affect Services for an Aging Population?, Howard Gleckman, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, April, 2007.

From the conclusion:

The goal of government long-term care policy should be to provide the best possible quality of life for the elderly and disabled in the most cost-effective way. It should not merely become an exercise in saving money. However, unless policymakers are willing to make major changes, Medicaid will threaten to crowd out spending for other services citizens have come to expect from government, force substantial tax increases, or both.

This brief described the existing Medicaid system, its cost pressures, and experiments aimed at reducing cost growth. Subsequent briefs will look at the role of private long-term care insurance, describe how other developed nations provide such care, and explore ideas for fundamental change in the way long-term care is financed and delivered in the United States. The fundamental question that reformers must answer is whether this care should be provided as part of the nation’s structure of social insurance, whether it should be an individual responsibility, or some combination of the two.