This weekend brought more depressing news on the long-term care insurance front — and continued evidence that we have our heads in the sand about these issues.

First came the news that the Obama administration was scrapping the Class Act. The act was intended to create a new, government-sponsored long-term care insurance system. It wouldn’t have paid for all needs, but it would have helped pay for some of them.

Alas, the program wasn’t actuarially sound, which kind of makes you wonder who allowed an uneconomic program to get passed in the first place. Now, the idea of government-endorsed insurance that would look anything like this has been tarred and feathered as something that only financially irresponsible people dream up.

Pair the Class Act news with an essay in the Sunday Review section of The Times by Jane Gross on how Medicare ultimately fails so many elderly people, and you start to get a sense of the size of the problem we are facing. Plenty of people think Medicare will cover all their needs, but it doesn’t pay for nursing homes and similar care most of the time. And if you want high-quality care and are paying for it out of your own pocket, it can sometimes cost $100,000 a year or more.

Sure, you could try to buy insurance via the private market. But the companies that offer it are no dummies. They see what is coming, and they are either rapidly raising prices or getting out of the industry altogether. And if you do have insurance and need to file a claim? You may have to fight to get what the policy promises. After all, there are often judgment calls about who is truly in need of care and what is actually covered.

So how would you solve this problem? I’m out of ideas but still enraged by the fact that nobody wants to talk about this.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=62920710943df772cac9c690ef8fa8ba