Surprise, another politician thinking they need to save us from ourselves

 Last week Bloomberg reported that Senator Herb Kohl from Wisconsin proposed legislation that would put heavy regulation on the long-term care insurance industry saying it may not be a “cure-all” for the estimated 12 million Americans who will require such care by 2020.  This is just another example of government going wild in trying to “fix” another industry with layers of red tape.  The consumer is the one that will be hurt in the end because each layer of regulation the government sets up will just increase the cost the consumer  will have to pay for their long term care insurance.  Simply put, companies do not pay taxes/fees; they pass those extra expenses onto the consumer through higher prices.  As common sense can predict, the company will just increase the insurance cost and essentially the consumers will end up paying higher cost through another hidden-embedded tax. 

The US Government has become more and more overbearing recently and these politician’s egos are so huge that they think they are the ones who can fix your problems not you.  This nanny state mentality will slow innovation and increase the cost of insurance.  The Senator cites a poorly run company in Conseco who has had to file for bankruptcy in the past as his main example and seeming pigeonholes all long term care insurance companies as being mismanaged and risky to the consumer.  This is simply untrue and blue-chip carriers such as Genworth, John Hancock, MetLife, etc. have paid billions of LTC claims and have some of the lowest customer complaint rates in the industry. 

Not to get too much off topic, but please take a hard look at your State’s Senator in Fall of 2010 and those politicians who show the arrogance that they know more than you and must save you from yourself—vote them out both democrat and republican.  The bottom line is the people can make better decisions than the government about what’s going to be best for their family.  When researching long term care insurance go with the brand name carriers who have a 100 plus year history of treating their customers fairly.  If you’d like to learn more on long term care insurance please fill in the form below.  Thank you for reading our blog…we really appreciate it.