Montana Long Term Care Insurance Partnership Program
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by: christinewalker
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Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 Time: 4:18 PM
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The population of Montana is aging faster than the rate of any other states, according to the State Plan on Aging. The study also divulged the foreseen problems and challenges in providing long term care services in rural communities, since consumers in these communities have hard time finding affordable LTC services in their area.
The State Plan on Aging recommended an increased in number of beneficiaries of Medicaid Home and Community-Based Waiver Program to about 100 persons per biennium. The state of Montana followed this recommendation and boosted the funding that would accommodate 102 slots for the programs.
There were several programs established to address the lingering problems of long term care. The legislature, on the other hand, created an Older Montanans Trust Fund (Senate Bill 155) in 2007 that will advance the program for home and community-based services (HCBS) and foster new or innovative programs for older people. Meanwhile, in the same year, the Senate Bill 206 was passed that authorized the Department of Public Health and Human Services to research the feasibility of increasing Medicaid payments to personal care providers and employees so employers can provide better health insurance for their workers. Senate Bill 206 authorizes the state department to analyze the effects of the plan.
In 1993, four states—California, New York, Indiana, and Connecticut—started the pilot program for long term care partnership. This program envisioned to help modify the stringent policies for qualifying in Medicaid program and encourage people to secure long term care insurance for themselves. The partnership program encouraged a lot of consumers from low to high income earners, since the program allows consumers to purchase policies even if they have assets greater than the required asset limit of Medicaid.
The state government of Montana acknowledged the benefits of the partnership program, and believed that more and more consumers will purchase policies for they are not required to reach the maximum asset limit of Medicaid or fritter their resources in order to qualify. After the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 was created, the state of Montana adopted the long term care insurance partnership program. The legislation was approved in 2007 and, as of July 1, 2009, private insurance providers participated in the partnership program. With the asset protection feature, an individual with partnership policy that pays $300,000 policy benefits can retain more of his or her resources, but still qualify for Medicaid coverage. The insured would be able to protect $300,000 assets from Medicaid asset recovery upon death. To sum up, an insured may be able to protect the amount of assets from estate recovery equal to the amount of benefits for long term care insurance.
Do partnership policies save taxpayer dollars? The 2005 Congressional Research Study found out that people are encouraged by the asset disregard protection. Supporters of partnership policies agreed that people can save more dollars to some extent, provided that partnership policies have incorporated inflation protection. When more insurers purchase the partnership policies, the Medicaid expenditures will be lessened and the taxpayers themselves will benefit
About the Author
Read the latest Montana long term care insurance information to help you guide through LTC insurance shopping. Visit http://www.completelongtermcare.com to get the most relevant resources on reimbursement long term care insurance. Compare prices and get quotes from top LTC insurance providers!
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