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CLASS Act Analysis reveals America’s
Long-Term Care Future
The Community Living Assistance Services and
Supports (CLASS) Act — a largely overlooked
component of the 2010 Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act — has the potential to
transform long-term care financing in the
United States from a welfare-based to an
insurance-based system, according to the
latest issue of Public
Policy & Aging Report(PPAR).
With funding from The
SCAN Foundation, this installment
of PPAR features
seven articles that recount the origins of
the CLASS Act, analyze the legislation’s key
provisions, and explore potential hurdles of
implementation.
"We consider this issue of PPAR to
represent the best of what the publication
has to offer,” said PPAR Editor
Robert Hudson, PhD, chair of the Department
of Social Policy at the Boston University
School of Social Work.
“It is timely, informed, and cutting edge.
It goes beyond the headlines and delivers
detailed accounts of the emergence of the
CLASS Act to a broad audience of policy and
academic leaders.”
The CLASS Act introduces a voluntary,
federally administered insurance program
designed to provide middle-class Americans
the new choice to plan ahead for personal
care and supportive service needs in the
face of functional impairment. Enrolled
individuals no longer will have to be
demonstrably poor or spend themselves into
poverty to receive long-term care
protection.
According to the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, at least 70 percent of
Americans over the age of 65 will need
long-term care services at some point in
their lives.
“CLASS is about allowing working Americans
to take personal responsibility for planning
ahead so they can age with dignity and
independence,” said Bruce Chernof, MD,
president and CEO of The SCAN Foundation.
“CLASS enrollees will have the power to
choose the services they want in the setting
most appropriate to their needs.”
The current issue of PPAR,
published by the National
Academy on an Aging Society, is
available for purchase atwww.agingsociety.org.
The authors include Lisa Shugarman, PhD, of
The SCAN Foundation; Joshua Wiener, PhD, of
RTI International; Walter Dawson of Oxford
University; Barbara Manard, PhD, of the
American Association of Homes and Services
for the Aging; Anne Tumlinson, MMHS, of
Avalere Health; Rhonda Richards of AARP; and
Kathryn Roberts, PhD, of Ecumen.
###
The National
Academy on an Aging Society is
the policy institute of The
Gerontological Society of America,
the nation's oldest and largest
interdisciplinary organization devoted to
research, education, and practice in the
field of aging. The principal mission of the
Society — and its 5,200+ members — is to
advance the study of aging and disseminate
information among scientists, decision
makers, and the general public.
The SCAN
Foundation is
an independent nonprofit foundation
dedicated to advancing the development of a
sustainable continuum of quality care for
seniors that integrates medical treatment
and human services in the settings most
appropriate to their needs and with the
greatest likelihood of a healthy,
independent life. The SCAN Foundation
supports programs that stimulate public
engagement, develop realistic public policy
and financing options, and disseminate
promising care models and technologies. For
more information about The SCAN Foundation,
visit
www.TheSCANFoundation.org.
