Through: The Director of Long Term Care
After spending some time with the organization and establishing the challenges that the elderly population face, I have realized that it is important that the organization should ensure that every employee should be enrolled into the Long-term care insurance now. The longer the time people spend to delay their planning for long-term care until they are out of the workforce and are facing challenges of old age and declining health, the higher the chances of finding such options severely constrained. Even though some decisions might be put on hold until later in life, maybe when people are in their late 50-s, nevertheless, acquiring and paying for a long term healthcare insurance is not one to gamble with until this later stage. With the Affordable Care Act in position, people should no longer worry about the costs of the long-term care insurance; the Obamacare health insurance policies are taking lumps in ensuring the American population access these social services. It is notable that the cost of care in the United States is increasingly becoming expensive and most of the unemployed and low class population are having problems paying for these services. The aging population, who also constitute the unemployed population and the highest demanders of the long-term care, are also incapacitated to meet these costs (Eisenberg, 2013). This calls for even more efforts for the young and employed populations to acquire these policies.
I have weighted options for taking a long-term care insurance against reasons for avoiding the same now and developed five reasons that I believe would convince you to think otherwise. First, I have found out that the premiums are lower and payouts are higher when people enroll for the long-term care insurance earlier in life. I believe this is a financial reason to consider. The premiums are cost effective and the benefits are satisfying. For instance, in the Connecticut partnership Policy that assumes people start drawing the benefits at the age of 85, buying a policy earlier in life invites over $75,000 in premiums and results to over $800,000 in benefits (Sekar, 2013). On the other hand, if you decide to buy a policy at the age of 75 years, it therefore implies that you will have to pay $100,000 for ten years and only receive $310, 000 in benefits (Sekar, 2013). This implies that the applicants enrolling for long-term care policies later in life pay 25% more in premiums and receive less than half of their counterparts in benefits.
Secondly, some payment alternative options have tax implications. The organization might forgo long-term insurance for their employees, but these employees would still need to plan for financing their health care as they age up. However, some of the options invite taxation. For instance, the charitable remainder trusts, which provide health solution, provide taxable payouts. Therefore, my analysis is that the organization should ensure that employees forgo these other options for the long-term insurance. Thirdly, insurers will not easily accept to cover people with pre-existing poor health and conditions. Considering that there are age related diseases, I believe that when people seek insurance at old age – after retirement – they might have a hard task acquiring policies, or if they land on any policy, they might pay dearly. Therefore, at their current ages, I believe the organization should consider the long-term care insurance option.
In addition to the aforementioned reasons, I have also found out that combining life insurance policies with the long-term care insurance policy has several benefits to the organizational employees. For instance, such policies allow the employees to get an advance on their life insurance benefits, or sell the policy at face value to fund long-term care (Sekar, 2013). This additionally helps them in evading expensive care. Finally, the cost of healthcare in the United States is rapidly skyrocketing, which implies that people might not sufficiently finance their health needs in the future without insurance covers. Therefore, I believe it is important that employees get long-term insurance covers when the costs are still affordable.
Despite the advantages of the long-term insurance policies on the employees, it is additionally important to the organization. The most significant impact of the insurance policy and cover is the fact that the employees will have sufficient time to perform their duties because the stresses of sourcing fund for the higher premiums will be reduced. Additionally, the move ties the employees to the organization, because they will perform their duties with the knowledge that they have benefits to enjoy from the organization, thereby improving efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, ignoring this option might later interfere with the employees because they will have to pay from their salaries leaving them with limited to spend on other necessities. This consequently reduces satisfaction, since satisfaction can also be determined with monetary benefits.
References:
Sekar S. (September. 11, 2013). 5 Reasons to Buy Long-Term Care Insurance Now. The Market Watch. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-reasons-to-buy-long-term-care-insurance-now-2013-09-11
Eisenberg R. (October 25, 2013). How Government Could Cut Long-Term Care Costs. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/10/25/how-government-could-cut-long-term-care-costs/
