Making Long-Term Health Care More Affordable

Publication Date: February 1990

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

Author(s): Edmund F. Haislmaier

Research Area: Health

Keywords: Health care

Type: Report

Abstract:

Congress’s role should not be to create an enormous new federal program that imposes additional, heavy taxes on working Americans simply to further subsidize affluent retirees. Rather, lawmakers should stick to the more appropriate tasks of improving the delivery of long-term care services to the poor - those who legitimately need government help - and encouraging middle-income Americans to take, through the private sector, the same prudent actions to protect their assets from nursing home costs that they take to protect themselves from other financial catastrophes.