• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
California Health Advocates

California Health Advocates

  • Contact
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Our Team
    • Mission
    • Education Services
    • About HICAP
    • Press
    • Testimonials
  • MEDICARE COUNSELING
  • Fact Sheets
  • Topics
    • The Basics
    • Prescription Drugs
    • Low-Income Help
    • Medigap
    • Medicare Advantage
    • Other Health Insurance
    • Appeals
    • Billing & Claims
    • Disabilities
    • Long-Term Care
    • Tribal Nations & Medicare
    • Health Care Reform
    • Advocacy & Policy
    • Glossary
  • Fraud & Abuse
  • Medicare Complaints
  • Blog
  • Donate

CHA Supports Task Force to Create a Statewide Long-Term Care Program

California Health Advocates > Advocacy & Policy > Letters and Comments to Policymakers > CHA Supports Task Force to Create a Statewide Long-Term Care Program

Posted by Karen Joy Fletcher on July 2, 2015

Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
Senator Patricia Bates, Vice Chair
Senate Appropriations
State Capitol, Room 2206
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: A.B. 332 (Calderon) – Support

Dear Senators:

California Health Advocates writes in strong support of A.B. 332 authored by Assemblyman Calderon.  This bill will establish a task force to begin exploring the feasibility of a statewide program to provide and pay for long-term care, and subsequently to recommend options to the Governor and the legislature on the degree of feasibility of each recommended option.

California Health Advocates is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing quality Medicare and related healthcare coverage information, education and policy advocacy. California Health Advocates provides training and technical assistance to local Health Insurance Counseling & Advocacy Programs (HICAP) that provide benefits counseling and community education on Medicare and long-term care.

We are thrilled at the prospect of a task force to explore financing options for financing long-term care and make recommendation to the legislature for a fiscally sound, coordinated state approach to this expense.  Financing this type of care is a subject that has befuddled consumers, policy-makers and legislators for decades, from the Pepper Commission in the 1980’s to the recent federal Commission on Long-term Care.  Failure to address this problem has allowed it to grow out of control with no end in sight.  California has an opportunity to lead the way for other states and the nation in developing a system for providing and paying for long-term care.

The costs of care today often impoverish those who need it and redirect Medi-Cal dollars from health care for the poor to nursing home expenses for the aged.  Future long-term care costs of the baby boomer population will make current costs seem trivial by comparison.  With 10,000 baby boomers a day turning 65 for the next 17 years it’s critical that a system for providing and paying for care be designed to cope with the costs of an aging population.  In the coming years almost a quarter of California’s population will be made up of people 60 and older.  Planning, providing and paying for long-term care has never been more critical than it is today.

Neither privately purchased insurance nor the state’s Medi-Cal program can solve the financing dilemma for this kind of care alone.  Commercial insurance is medically underwritten, expensive, subject to huge premium increases, and discriminates in pricing against women, while Medi-Cal is faced with growing numbers of people who are or will become poor.  Neither of these constitutes a system for the majority of people to plan and pay for long-term care.

California Health Advocates has long advocated for the development of a state or national solution for financing long-term care.  We welcome A.B. 332 as a first step in exploring the potential for a groundbreaking, fiscally sound system that combines and integrates multiple payments sources to finance long-term care.   We applaud Assemblyman Calderon for having the courage to take on this issue and we strongly support his bill.

We strongly urge passage of S.B. 575.

Sincerely,

Signned

Bonnie Burns

Cc:

Assemblyman Ian Calderon

Filed Under: Advocacy & Policy, Letters and Comments to Policymakers

Previous Post: « Are You New to Medicare? Review Your Medicare Enrollment Periods
Next Post: OIG Reports Show Part D is Vulnerable to Fraud & Provides Tips for Improvement »

About Karen Joy Fletcher

Our blogger Karen Joy Fletcher is CHA's Communications Director. With a Masters in Public Health from UC Berkeley, she is the online "public face" of the organization, provides technical expertise, writing and research on Medicare and other health care issues. She is responsible for digital content creation, management of CHA’s editorial calendar, and managing all aspects of CHA’s social media presence. She loves being a "communicator" and enjoys networking and collaborating with the passionate people and agencies in the health advocacy field. See her current articles.

Related Posts

  • CHA & Aging & Disability Stakeholders Respond to the 2023-24 Proposed Budget
  • CHA Applauds New Proposed Rule Making Medicare Enrollment Easier
  • Raise Medi-Cal’s Monthly Maintenance Need to a Livable Amount
  • Build Back Better Invests in Crucial Services for Older Adults & People with Disabilities

Primary Sidebar

Change Text Size

  • 100%  110%  120%  130%  

News & Blog Categories

  • Medicare Advantage
  • Low-Income help
  • Medicare & Disabilities
  • Medicare Basics
  • Prescription Drugs
  • Medicare & Other Health Insurance
  • Medicare Billings, Claims & Appeals
  • Health Care Disparities
  • Fraud & Abuse

—

  • COVID-19
  • Resources
  • Health Care Reform
  • Long-Term Care
  • CHA News

—

  • Advocacy & Policy
  • Letters and Comments to Policymakers
  • Legislative and Congressional Testimony
  • Policy Briefs

Send Us Comment

Do you have comments or concerns about your Medicare coverage? Issues regarding getting your needed prescriptions from your Part D plan, or a Medicare Advantage plan representative's marketing practices? Let us know at comments@cahealthadvocates.org.

We are dedicated to making Medicare's program work well for all beneficiaries. Your feedback from your own or your client's concerns and experiences with Medicare, will guide our Medicare advocacy efforts with key policy and decision-makers in both California and nationally with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Congress.

Archives

Donate Today

Footer

Sign up for our newsletter

Choose the news you'd like to receive

Important Links

  • About Us
  • Fact Sheets
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Contact
  • Privacy Notice
  • Cookie Policy
  • Accessibility Statement

Follow Us

Copyright © 2023 · California Health Advocates · Web Design by TWK Web and Print Design · Log in