Baby Boomers, Seniors and the Long Term Care Challenge

The Society of Certified Senior Advisors announces February's Educational Webinar, Baby Boomers, Seniors and the Long Term Care Challenge, presented by Bob Semro, Health Policy Analyst for the Bell Policy Center in Denver, CO. This event is being held on Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 11:00 AM (PST); 2:00 PM (EST).

This webinar will focus on the institutional challenges facing baby boomers and seniors over the next two decades with regard to long term care. As many as 70 percent of people over the age of 65 will need some form of long term care at some point in their lives. The growth in this population between now and the year 2030 will also place unprecedented fiscal and institutional strain on programs like Medicare and Medicaid and the long term care services infrastructure.

Most baby boomers and many seniors do not realize that only Medicaid serves as the federal and state safety net program for long term care recipients when they no longer have the resources to pay for high cost long term care supports and services. Even fewer baby boomers and seniors are aware of the options they have open to them, how costly some of those services are and the demands that they can place on personal savings. And many baby-boomers are not financially prepared.

Long term care insurance has only penetrated as little as 10 percent of their target population and as of 2011, 10 of the top 20 carriers no longer offer that coverage. Unfortunately, the major long term care provision in the Affordable Care Act, the “CLASS” provision, was found to be financially unsustainable over time and has since been repealed from the law.

This webinar will identify and highlight some of the long term care issues that America’s baby boomers and seniors may face in the future. Topics will include:

• The demographic challenge facing the United States

• The fiscal impact of baby-boomers leaving the workforce on state and feral budgets

• The financial insecurity of American Seniors and baby boomers and the reasons behind that insecurity

• Long term care and the 65+ population

• National long term care financing

     - The cost of informal long term care

     - What Medicare pays for

     - Medicaid eligibility and what Medicaid pays for

• Long term care options, their costs, and how those costs are growing

• The impact on of the baby boomers and seniors on state and federal budgets

• Possible policy options for state governments

Bob Semro is a Denver native and worked in the private sector for more than 25 years. He is a graduate of the University of Denver, with a degree in political science. Bob was a project manager for a home-centered pilot health care program for persons with disabilities and served as a Policy Analyst for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative (CCHI). He is currently the Health Policy Analyst for the Bell Policy Center, a non-profit think tank in Denver, Colorado.

Bob has served on the policy and advocacy committee for the Colorado Alzheimer's Association, the Chronic Care Collaborative and the Colorado Gerontological Society. He was selected as a member of the Vulnerable Populations Task Force for the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform (208 Commission) and the Home Health Care Advisory Committee for the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. He currently serves on the Health Plan Advisory Workgroup for the Colorado Health Benefits Exchange and the All Payer Claims Database Advisory Committee and Data Release and Review Committee.

Date: Thursday, February 21, 2013

Time: 11:00AM (PST); 12:00Noon (MST); 1:00PM (CST); 2:00PM (EST)

Cost: Free for Members; $49.00 Public

Register Now!


SCSA provides educational webinars for our members on a monthly basis. To see a full list of past presentations, please visit www.csa.us/EducationalWebinars. If you are non-member interested in viewing any of these presentations, please contact us at info@csa.us.