Long-term care and coverage must be available and accessible to all Americans. The first step in addressing the problem is to raise public awareness. Most Americans are unaware of the high costs of long-term care or mistakenly assume that the Medicare program covers these costs. As you know, Medicare provides coverage only when a person's life savings are depleted. With the high costs of nursing home care, life savings are depleted quickly without long-term care insurance.
Public awareness is only the first step.
We must implement positive common sense reforms to provide quality long-term care without bankrupting recipients. I support using tax incentives and market based solutions to provide for this growing segment on health-care consumers. Recently I supported the provision in the 1999 tax bill which would have made long-term care insurance tax deductible. I supported a similar provision in the Patient's Bill of Rights.