Senate Press Conference Today on How Health Care Reform Bill Affects Long-Term Services

Sen. Harry Reid’s office is holding a press conference today (1 p.m. today in the Senate Visitor’s Center Room 210) to discuss how the Senate’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act improves access to quality, affordable long-term services and supports.

Decisions about the Senate’s bill are forthcoming. The overall final health care reform bill will be a giant leap forward for the uninsured and for any of us vulnerable to loss of health insurance coverage. From what we know, our most important priorities are still included: the CLASS Act, preservation of the Medicare market basket, pilot projects to demonstrate better care management, a center for innovation at CMS, Medicaid improvements, and closing the Part D doughnut hole.

I believe we are close to making the big transformational change so necessary at this point in time. But this is difficult.  Many nay-sayers and pundits- for reasons that mystify me. And no change this big has taken place in health care for 50 years. But we are so very close.

Our major opposition at this time is coming in the form of the long-term insurance sector, which is flooding the Senate with lobbyists and outdated information (for some good information, read this this op-ed from Donald H. Taylor Jr., an assistant professor of public policy at Duke University).

The next several days are critical.

The Senate could be ready to vote next week, after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gives a score on the modifications being made related to the public option. Until then, political rhetoric and half- baked media messages will abound.

I’ve been telling senators and media that if the CLASS Act provision remains in the final bill, we’ll look back in about a decade or so on CLASS as the hidden gem in this bill that changed services delivery to make it consumer friendly, virtually eliminated most family exposure to financial ruin in caring for a loved one at home, and stemmed the Medicaid tsunami.

We at AAHSA will continue to help all of you as leaders separate fact from fiction in that regard.

A final bill won’t be perfect, but the big paradigm changers are provisions for the uninsured, insurance reform, CLASS, and mechanisms that stimulate innovation. The downstream affects on the seniors we serve, our workforce, and our potential leadership roles in our communities are potentially very constructive.

The initial bill met AAHSA’s criteria for a healthy, ethical, and affordable plan. I anticipate the modified one will do so as well.

The closer we have worked with Senate leadership and their staffs, the more impressed I am with their personal passion for wanting to help people. And the more some of them like Sen. Reid are willing to risk their political career to get the right thing done for people.

Continue to let your senators know that you expect reform to occur NOW.

And thank them and their staffs for their hard work.