In a letter sent to members of Congress and an opinion piece published in The Hill (Fix Needed Now: America’s Long-Term Care Financing System is Broken), LeadingAge president and CEO Katie Smith Sloan urges lawmakers to be “courageous” and “offer bold solutions” to address the crisis millions of older adults and families are navigating now as they struggle to access and pay for long-term care.

Pointing to the harrowing stories told in “Dying Broke,” the recently published New York Times/KFF Health News series that explores the tough choices and decisions older adults, family members and other caregivers face to get much-needed care, Sloan argues that the harrowing situations depicted are largely the result of America’s insufficient approach to financing long-term services and supports. 

“Dying Broke,” Sloan says in The Hill, “is an important and unflinching look at how our country is failing us.” And consumers, she notes, are not suffering alone. Insufficient support for providers is forcing more and more of LeadingAge’s nonprofit members to take extreme measures to make ends meet, including reducing services and being forced to close or sell. Residents recently held a bake sale, for instance, to help raise funds for one struggling Rhode Island member nursing home, but the $2,000 raised can’t match the needs. 

These issues were foreseeable, Sloan says, citing nonprofit providers’ longstanding efforts to improve America’s broken system. “We’ve offered new ideas to solve the long-term care financing crisis, and have supported multiple attempts at federal legislation—including the CLASS Act, at one time part of the Affordable Care Act; the WISH Act, the Medicare Long-Term Care Services and Supports Act of 2018 and other efforts dating back to the 1980s. Sadly, progress has been elusive.”

Sloan warns that a continued lack of federal government action will only result in more suffering and, using “Dying Broke” as a call to action, invites Congress to act.  LeadingAge, she adds, “stands ready to talk with you about measures to address this all-too-common problem American families face.”