Kennedy Health Bill

Kennedy Health Bill Would Offer Low-Cost Insurance to Help Ill Elderly Remain at Home

June 13, 2009

Senator Edward M. Kennedy has released an expansive health care plan that includes a new national long-term care insurance program offering basic help for the elderly and disabled.

Under Kennedy's proposed long-term care plan, Americans would pay a premium of roughly $65 per month, far less than the typical cost of private long-term care insurance. After they had contributed for at least five years, participants would be eligible for a benefit of not less than $50 a day. While the benefit is modest compared to the average cost of nursing home care (about $212 a day in Michigan), it could be used instead to pay for a range of services that would help people stay in their homes.

Medicaid "waiver" programs that offer home health services often have long waiting lists in the states that offer them. Many elderly or disabled individuals end up in nursing homes at government expense when all they actually need is help around the house or home nurse visits. For many middle-income Americans, the Kennedy plan could be just enough to allow them to stay at home or to afford assisted living care.

All working Americans would automatically be enrolled in the plan but could choose to opt out. Students and the poor would pay only $5 a month.

The long-term care plan is only one component of a bill that aims to reinvent health care. Other provisions in his bill would:

create a new government-sponsored insurance program that would pay doctors and hospitals Medicare rates, plus 10 percent;
make it illegal for private insurers to deny coverage for people with pre-existing conditions;
require businesses to provide insurance for workers or face penalties;
allow children to be covered under their parents' policies through age 26;
require that insurers report to the federal government how premiums are being spent and give rebates to beneficiaries if a percentage of the premium does not go to patient benefits.

Whether Kennedy's bill will pass depends upon the type of health care legislation the Obama administration and Congress agree upon.

Andrew Byers, Michigan Elder Law Attorney

Estate & Longevity Planning, Veteran's Benefits, Medicaid Planning and Qualification