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Improving Long Term CareThank you, John Hoff, for your kind introduction. It's good to have you on our team at HHS. It's wonderful to be able to join all of you tonight. I'd especially like to thank those of you here who joined me last year to announce and promote our Nursing Home Quality Initiative. I am truly grateful for your dedication to improving health care in America. It is good to see Senator John Breaux here tonight. John and I seem to be running into each other a lot lately, and I always enjoy discussing health care issues with him. I'm also glad to see Congressman Earl Pomeroy could be with us. I know he is a tireless worker on long-term health care issues. My friends, the challenges facing long-term care in America concern all of us. The sad fact is that 94% of all Americans are uninsured for long-term care. The benefits of buying long-term care insurance at a young age are clear, but most people still don't recognize those benefits until they are elderly. President Bush and I strongly believe that the role of government is to protect the freedom of all people to take steps and make choices to improve their own health. We must renew our commitment to this principle by harnessing, not undermining, the market-based system that has made American health care an example of quality and innovation to the whole world. That doesn't mean the federal government has no role to play. Choice isn't worth much if no choices are available. We are committed to ensuring that Americans have health care choices - not only through informing consumers, but also by ensuring the health of the health care industry itself. I promise you that we will carry out our reforms in partnership with the American health care industry. We need your constant cooperation and support to succeed. We must preserve and protect the social safety net that our most disadvantaged citizens have come to rely upon. But we must also encourage people to invest in their own futures, and recognize the likely need for long-term care down the road. Working together, we can and must get the message out to baby boomers that they need to include long-term care in their retirement planning. The aging of the baby boom generation will significantly increase the demand for long-term care services. From now on, each generation is going to have to assume more responsibility for retirement planning. We all agree that the insurance necessary for long-term health care should be accessible, affordable, and accountable for all Americans. There is no "one size fits all" approach to financing long-term care. We need solutions that will help Americans where they are, tailored to different financial and family situations. The President's budget is the first step in the right direction. It includes an above-the-line tax deduction to make private long-term care insurance policies more affordable and available. The budget also removes the legislative barriers erected a decade ago that discourage state Medicaid programs from partnering with private insurers. These two proposals will allow more Americans to afford private long-term care insurance, and help people have more options as they plan ahead. We're also offering long-term care insurance for federal employees, a step intended to encourage the approximately 8 million Americans who are part of the federal government to take responsibility for planning for their long-term health care. We hope that this program will serve as a model for other employers. The next twenty years will determine, one way or the other, our success or failure today. We must act now, before the problem is fully upon us. The current system cannot hold under the weight of the next generation. The willingness to act is itself half the battle. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "You cannot fail - if you resolutely determine that you will not." With your help, we can encourage Americans to prepare for their future. With your help, Americans can grow older with more vigor and fewer financial worries. With your help, we can achieve real, lasting change for the common good. Thank you for your passion for American health care. Last Revised: March 13, 2003 |
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