AARP estimates that around 25 Million persons are providing unpaid caregiving to a loved one with a disability, and that those who do so while juggling market work lose around $325,000 in lifetime income after accounting for foregone wages, income from Social Security, and private pensions. The worst part of the demise of the CLASS provisions in the Affordable Care Act has been the fact that the majority of the focus was on the impact of CLASS on the 10 year deficit score assigned to the bill be the CBO (it accounted for around half of the ACA’s deficit reduction), diverting attention from one of the most profound public policy questions facing our nation:
CLASS wasn’t an accounting gimmick, but an attempt to set up a self sustaining, voluntary LTC insurance program that would provide modest benefits (not enough for a nursing home; best thought of as aiding aging in place) to persons with disabilities. If CLASS had worked perfectly and been a self sustaining program, it would have decreased the deficit in the short term, while increasing the deficit in the out years. As I wrote in December, 2009 about CLASS:
Continue reading “The Cost of Caregiving and the Demise of CLASS”