Let’s have all the facts on personal and long-term care

Not too long ago, our premier went before the media to announce a new initiative which government entitled “Improved Financial Assessment Process for Long Term Care and Community Support Services.”

The primary piece of this initiative which the premier diligently emphasized was that starting Nov. 1 , those applying for long-term care and community supports will no longer have to provide proof of how much money they have in the bank or what kind of investments they have that can be converted to cash, including RRSPS, home equity or savings accounts.

This is indeed good news and is something that will finally bring N.L. in line with the rest of the country. It is also something that senior’s organizations have been advocating for a long time.

As a matter of fact, not long after this announcement, a representative of N.L.’S largest senior’s organization was on the Open Line speaking to their efforts in advocating for this change over the years and giving kudos to the government for the initiative.

And let me say upfront, I certainly join with them in this regard and give our government a big thumbs up for this particular policy shift that will prevent seniors from having to basically liquidate their assets and empty their bank accounts before receiving any government assistance for personal/ long-term care.

With that said, another component of this announcement that did not receive quite as much attention had to do with a shift from a needs-based to an income-based model for determining the portion of income a senior would have to pay for personal or long term care.

This income-based model is already being utilized for home care and while it may have little to no negative impact on certain people based on their individual circumstances, for others the impact can be profound.

Now government did indicate that for any senior who is currently in receipt of personal or long-term care, they would be “grandfathered in” so there would be no negative impact on them even if the new calculation dictated an increase. That’s great. However, what about anybody who newly enters into the system? What does it mean for them?

Interestingly, the examples cherry picked by government officials for the media only showed the people that will be unaffected or will actually be slightly better off after their portion of personal or long term care is paid for the month.

However, for some strange reason, there were zero examples given for those who will no doubt have to pay more.

When yours truly asked officials from the Department of Health and Community Services why there were no examples given of those that would have to pay more, they could provide no explanation.

When asked what the financial threshold was for someone who would indeed have to pay more under the new model, they weren’t able to provide a number.

When asked for a ball-park dollar amount on how much more someone would have to pay under the new system compared to those in the system today, they again couldn’t tell me.

They did indicate that there would be a policy for financial hardship to deal with anyone who simply won’t be able to manage under the new income based model but as that policy hasn’t even been developed yet, they were unable to tell me what they define as “hardship” and what type of financial remedies would be available for those that meet the criteria.

So what is my point? I have a couple. First point ties into the old sayings “the Devil is in the details” and “things aren’t always as they appear.”

The second and salient point of this opinion peace is that government needs to be forthcoming with all of the relevant information and allow the public to decide, based on all of the facts, whether or not they feel this is an acceptable shift in public policy. Openness and transparency should be more than a political catch phrase.

Paul Lane, Independent MHA

District of Mount Pearl-southlands