By Lisa Watts
A new LTSS Center study will explore ways to help middle-class Californians pay for long-term services and support (LTSS).
The LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston will help the California Department of Aging explore the need for long-term services and supports (LTSS) among middle-class Californians and determine whether these state residents can afford that care. LTSS Center researchers will work with a variety of partners to forecast LTSS needs in the Golden State and research existing funding models.
The project will focus on a challenge not unique to California: How to help the “overlooked middle”—people who earn too much income to qualify for Medicaid’s safety net programs but not enough to afford long-term care—pay for nursing home or in-home care.
“The need for long-term services and supports strikes people across all economic classes, and it’s a difficult situation to plan for,” says Marc Cohen, co-director of the LTSS Center and research director for Community Catalyst’s Center for Community Engagement in Health Innovation, one of the partners on the project. “Saving for long-term care and buying private long-term care insurance are out of reach for most middle-class Americans. Their alternatives are relying on family members or spending down their savings to pay for nursing home or in-home care until they qualify for safety-net coverage.”
The researchers plan to:
- Explore potential opportunities through Medicare through research and actuarial analysis from ATI Advisory and Milliman
- Define the “overlooked middle” population, project their needs over time in partnership with the Urban Institute, and collaborate with Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies to study how to help people stay in their homes.
- Hold a series of listening sessions and focus groups in partnership with Community Catalyst and Collaborative Consulting to hear firsthand from people with lived experience about the target population’s challenges and worries. The researchers will also contract with NORC at the University of Chicago to conduct a quantitative survey in California about the current challenges and issues facing this population. A second NORC survey will help determine which potential solutions resonate with Californians.
Cohen is excited about the potential impact of the research.
“In the healthcare realm, public policy typically focuses on making sure that people who are uninsured and/or poor have access to healthcare and safety net programs,” he says. “But long-term care is a very different challenge.”
The three-year, $4.3 million contract—awarded to the LTSS Center through the center’s partner, Community Catalyst—is the center’s largest single contract since its creation in 2017.
For more information about this project, visit the UMass Boston Gerontology Institute Blog.