Word: longingly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's right, Ivygateblog.com—founded in 2006 and known for satirizing the good, the bad, and the ugly in the Ivy League—just made its first post in 19 days, an unusually long gap for a site that used to update frequently throughout each...
...order of tens of billions of dollars." This is not, however, the so-called public option that is the focus of much heated debate on Capitol Hill. It's an entirely different Democratic plan for a new kind of government-run health insurance - one that would help provide long-term care for the elderly and infirm...
...while it may not be getting nearly as much attention as the public option, this once obscure provision has already made waves on the Senate floor. To supporters, it's the fulfillment of a long-deferred dream of Senator Ted Kennedy, a chance to improve the current options available to the elderly and disabled who need care (Medicare does not cover long-term nursing-home stays, and Medicare funding for home health care would be cut under health reform); to critics, it's a fiscally unsound budget gimmick, "a classic definition of a Ponzi scheme," as Republican Senator John Thune...
Home care is much cheaper than nursing-home care, which averages about $200 per day. Yet millions of Americans who need long-term care but can't afford to pay for it have to "spend down" all their assets, become poor enough to qualify for Medicaid and then move to nursing homes, which the program covers. (Medicaid coverage for home health services varies from state to state.) This does not come cheap for the government, which pays about 60% of all long-term-care costs in the U.S.; only about 5% of Americans currently have private long-term-care insurance...
...fiscal standpoint, certain details of the CLASS Act have made it an easy target for critics. Examining the merits of these criticisms provides a window to understanding both the complexity of health care reform and why it's so ripe for mischaracterization. For instance, to prevent people from purchasing long-term-care coverage when they are already in need, the CLASS Act requires that enrollees be employed and pay into the system for five years before becoming eligible to collect benefits. But because the CBO evaluates the costs of legislation - like the Senate reform bill - based on 10-year periods...