NCOIL Puts Off LTC Partnership Model

California, Connecticut, Indiana and New York currently offer partnership programs, because they had them in place before the programs were prohibited under the 1993 federal budget act.

"Having a public-private partnership program that allows consumers to purchase an LTC policy without having to spend down their assets, while providing relief to struggling state Medicaid budgets, is the ultimate goal of everyone in the room, and we want to be assured this can be achieved successfully," Mamarella told the lawmakers at the NCOIL meeting last week.

Sam Morgante, vice president of government relations for Genworth Financial, told the lawmakers that state LTC partnership policies in the past decade increased consumer receptivity to learning about LTC insurance and also encouraged more younger consumers to buy such policies, compared to those buying nonpartnership policies.

"As we seriously consider expanding the partnerships, we need to better understand the role of a change in federal statutes and how not to set in motion 46 new experiments," he said.