| A Proposal to Finance Long-Term Care Services through Medicare with an Income Tax Surcharge
Johnson, Richard W.; Burman, Leonard E.
Urban Institute, June 22, 2007, online edition, 32p
"This report propose a new system of financing long-term care services in the United States. Our plan expands Medicare to cover comprehensive long-term care services, including home care and custodial nursing home care. Beneficiaries would share in the cost of services through deductibles and copayments, but the program would include stop loss coverage and special protections for low-income adults. By providing long-term care insurance that actually protects the assets of older adults, our proposal would eliminate the disincentive to save inherent in the means-tested Medicaid system. Our plan would also remove the bias in the current system for institutional care, enabling more persons with disabilities to remain at home where most prefer to live. We propose to finance this expansion of Medicare benefits with a surcharge on federal income taxes. Unlike the regressive payroll tax that finances Medicare’s hospitalization coverage, the surcharge we propose would not increase tax burdens for low-income individuals or families. All of the revenue generated by the tax would be dedicated to a special Medicare trust fund that would finance future long-term care services." Leonard E. Burman, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and a visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University. Richard W. Johnson, Ph.D., is a principal research associate at the Urban Institute.
Go to the report
C24/04-07. Posted July 16, 2007
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