Tom Suozzi Highlights Need To Develop A ‘Catastrophic Care Program’ To Combat End-Of-Life Issues

14 hours ago

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) discussed the need to develop a federal program aimed at addressing end-of-life issues.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. Suozzi, you're recognized.

00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses.

00:08I know you've had a long day today, Dr. Madison and Mr. Dongelli and Mr. Fleece, Ms. Graebert

00:12and Mr. Carlson, and I wasn't here for most of your testimony.

00:15I watched some of it on TV, but I appreciate it.

00:18I just wanted to come here and talk about a bill that I'm working on that is pertinent

00:22to this issue.

00:23As Mr. Carlson mentioned in his written testimony, there are 10,000 people turning 65 every day,

00:30and in five years, I don't know if that was in your testimony, but in five years, there'll

00:33be about 6,000 or 8,000 people turning 85 every day.

00:38And one of the number one causes of new homeless people in America is turning 80 years old.

00:43We've got a major storm coming in our country with long-term care, especially, you know,

00:49we can't afford to put everybody in a nursing home.

00:51We don't have enough nursing homes, and Medicaid will go bust, and my Republican colleagues

00:56are talking about saving money in Medicaid, and I think I'm trying to posit an idea that

01:02can save a lot of Medicaid money, but also make people's lives better in the process,

01:07and that is to create a public-private partnership on long-term care insurance.

01:14I grew up in a household, four of my grandparents lived in my house growing up, three were very

01:17sick, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, they called senility in those days, colon cancer, and

01:24my other grandfather lived to about 90-something, pretty healthy.

01:27And my mother was a nurse, we all took care of my grandparents, I remember taking my grandmother

01:31to the bathroom, you can imagine what that was like when you're a young teenager.

01:35And my parents didn't want us to go through that, so they got long-term care insurance,

01:38and they lived until 95 and 93, and they died at home, and they had a great end-of-life

01:42experience, but most people can't afford long-term care insurance.

01:45Only three to four percent of Americans have long-term care insurance.

01:48And the insurance companies, when broke, when they issued a lot of insurance policies for

01:53long-term care originally, because they didn't take into account the actuarial tables that

01:58people would live a lot longer than the average of like a year and a half to two years after

02:02you couldn't do your two activities of daily living.

02:05So we're going to have a major problem in our country, it's already started, it's going

02:09to get a lot worse, where we have all these senior citizens that are living a lot longer,

02:13that are going to need assistance with activities of daily living, their kids have, their families

02:19are smaller, their kids have moved to other parts of the country, there's nobody to take

02:22care of their parents, and the solution right now is to spend down your assets or, you know,

02:27give them to your kids in some way or to your spouse, and do spousal refusal, and then stick

02:30you in a nursing home and have Medicaid pay for it.

02:32It's not only a bad way to end your life, it puts a lot of people into poverty and it's

02:36a really miserable way to exist.

02:40So what I'm proposing is that the federal government needs to create a catastrophic

02:44care program, whereby we will provide long-term care dollars to people if they live beyond

02:50a certain period of time.

02:52So if you are a lower income person, the lowest 20 percent of America, you've got to take

02:57care of yourself for a year between you and your family.

03:00If you're a higher income person, you've got to take care of yourself for five years, and

03:03a sliding scale in between that one year and five years.

03:06And by taking care of that catastrophic care portion, it will incentivize the private sector

03:12to create insurance products for long-term care that will be much more affordable, and

03:18they'll be out marketing it the way they market Medicare Part B and things like that

03:22now.

03:23They'll be out selling these products and letting people know that they've got to deal

03:26with this long-term care issue, because nobody talks about it.

03:30Nobody talks about these end-of-life issues, and as a result, families are falling apart

03:36all over America, seniors are being left destitute because they haven't talked about this issue,

03:41and it's never going to be the government that's going to solve this problem.

03:44We have to create a vehicle by which the private sector will be incentivized to go

03:48out and market these products that will be affordable for people, that they can get long-term

03:53care insurance.

03:55So the question is how to fund it.

03:57I believe the way to fund it, I originally wanted to do a payroll tax, but I'll never

04:00get my Republican colleagues to vote for a payroll tax.

04:02So I think there's one of two ways.

04:04One is to get the savings that we'll generate from Medicaid, because I believe we can dramatically

04:08reduce Medicaid expenses by creating these long-term care products.

04:12And number two is to, when we've, there are ideas out there now how to fix the Social

04:17Security Trust Fund by investing money, not Social Security Trust Funds, but other money

04:23that will get a rate of return that will help to supplement the Social Security Trust Fund.

04:27Anyway, Mr. Carlson, do you agree that there's a major problem in our country with this explosion

04:31of seniors that's coming on board?

04:34Yes, it's something clearly that has to be grappled with, as you point out, that oftentimes

04:41these issues don't get the attention that they deserve, and it absolutely deserves the

04:47sort of attention that you're describing here.

04:49Dr. Madison, do you think that Chairman Vern Buchanan is a brilliant, handsome, wonderful

04:54guy that will work together with me on the WISH program?

04:57Absolutely.

04:58Okay.

04:59Thank you very much.

05:00I yield back.

Tom Suozzi Highlights Need To Develop A ‘Catastrophic Care Program’ To Combat End-Of-Life Issues

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