Providing for Those in Need: Long-Term Care Policy

Publication Date: April 1988

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Peter J. Ferrara

Research Area: Health

Keywords: Health care

Type: Report

Abstract:

The proper policy for protecting Americans with accumulated assets is not providing them with benefits courtesy of the taxpayer, but encouraging them to protect their resources through insurance. The government thus should take steps to promote the development of private long-term care insurance to enable the elderly to obtain such protection more easily. It also should adopt policies to enable workers to accumulate savings during their careers that would be available to finance long-term care in retirement through private insurance or other means. Encouraging such prudent protection through private insurance, and not as a new entitlement program for the affluent is the proper way to deal with the long-term care concerns of America's elderly.