Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act of 2011
Floor Speech
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentleman.
You know, there's a lot of areas of agreement. We all agree that we're in the midst of a long-term care crisis. We agree that today there are 10 million Americans in need of long-term care services and support. By 2020, that number will grow to 15 million, and by 2050, the number of seniors who need long-term care will reach 26 million.
The costs associated with long-term care are high. We agree on that. Nursing homes can cost over $70,000 a year, and 20 hours a week of home care can cost nearly $20,000. But repealing the CLASS Act does nothing to address the glaring need for adequate coverage of long-term care services and support. The CLASS Act addressed a number of critical needs, including providing a way for persons with disabilities to remain independent in their community and bringing private dollars into the long-term services system to reduce reliance on Medicaid without impoverishing individuals and families. We agree that the CLASS Act is far from perfect, but it does provide a framework to begin to deal with the problem.
So it seems to me if we all agree on the need, not only the need for long-term care but the need to do better, then instead of repealing the CLASS Act and passing H.R. 1173 with no effective alternative, we could, right now today, sit down and work together to repair this program. Ignoring it or even postponing this long-term care crisis simply is not going to make it go away.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, roughly 70 percent of us at some point are going to have difficulty taking care of ourselves independently, and we're going to need some sort of long-term care or support. So as the population ages, of course the need for these services only increases.
I've been listening to this debate. On the substance, or at least as we identify the problem, there is an enormous amount of agreement. We all know that the costs associated with long-term care are very high, that nursing homes can cost over $70,000 a year, and that just 20 hours a week of home care costs nearly $20,000 a year. For working families, there are few practical options in order to plan and pay for long-term care and support services. Only about 3 percent have a private policy covering long-term care while the majority is forced to spend its way into poverty to qualify for the Medicare safety net coverage of those costs.
We know this. We all agree on this.
What the CLASS Act did was to address a number of critical needs, including providing a way for persons with disabilities to remain independent and in their communities by bringing private dollars into the long-term care services system in order to reduce the reliance on Medicaid without impoverishing individuals and their families.
Mr. Chair, here is how: if a person must go into a nursing home--and those are the potential long-term people, Americans--if such Americans must go into a nursing home, first they spend down their resources, and then they go into a nursing home at a cost of about $80,000 a year.
We all agree that the CLASS Act is far from perfect, but it provides a beginning framework to begin to deal with the problem.
I got a letter from Jonathan Lavin, CEO of AgeOptions in Oak Brook, Illinois, a service provider. He emailed me, actually, to say:
Please do not vote to repeal the CLASS Act. Such a vote will reverse the hope of millions of Americans that one day they may collectively insure themselves for the eventuality of a debilitating disability. When we see a young former Congresswoman gunned down and a healthy vibrant Illinois Senator struck by a stroke, we realize that any of us may suffer from a disability.
A broad-based, effective insurance program will assist those who face such life-altering challenges. We understand why the CLASS Act is delayed in implementation since the economic situation is so dire, but we cannot understand deliberately acting to eliminate the potential for such legislation to do so much good after the economy recovers.
Every American faces the reality that an accident or illness requiring long-term care could devastate them financially.
While this issue affects everyone, I want to focus on the importance of the CLASS Act for women in this country.
Long-term care is very much a women's health issue. Women live longer than men. Their life expectancy exceeds those of men by some 5 years. Because they live longer, women are at greater risk of needing long-term care services to help them when they become disabled or too sick or frail to care for themselves. Women tend to need more resources for long-term care. Women tend to be ill for longer periods of time, and women are less likely to have a family member to care for them.
Over 70 percent of nursing home residents and nearly two-thirds of home-care users are women. Because women, far more than men, take on the role of caregiver, women are the ones who end up staying at home, sometimes giving up careers to provide care for a sick or disabled family member, adults and children alike. Indeed, women make up three-fourths of the home-care workforce.
CLASS would help make these challenges easier. It would help provide the care women may require if and when they need long-term care or supports for themselves. It would help provide relief or a break, if you will, for those women who spend all day every day at home taking care of others in need of long-term care.
To take away this program is to take away the first real opportunity that the women of this country have to deal with the long-term care challenges they face day in and day out both as patients and as caregivers. Like so many other Republican assaults on the Affordable Care Act, H.R. 1173 is, in fact, an attack on women and women's health.
Like all those other assaults, we should push back and reject this one. CLASS is just one of the many advancements for women's health that is included in the Affordable Care Act. As you have heard many times today, let's fix it, not repeal it, so it can work for women and all Americans as intended.
Instead of passing H.R. 1173 and repealing the CLASS Act with no effective alternative in place, we can and should work together to repair this program. Ignoring the long-term care crisis won't make it go away.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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