Participants would receive a cash benefit of at least $50 a day if they cannot perform at least two activities of daily living, and premiums are not likely to exceed $65 a month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Employees could collect disability benefits even if they are still working. One aide told the newspaper that the program would be similar to long-term care insurance, but is not meant to replace it. However, the aide said it would be more affordable and more flexible than long-term care insurance.
Meanwhile, as spokesman Anthony Coley called the public version of Kennedy’s bill “a draft of a draft,” Kennedy’s fellow HELP Committee member and disability advocate Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) lead a briefing on Capitol Hill Monday on the long-term services they want included in the final version of a reform bill.
Connie Garner, disability and special needs population policy director for Kennedy, addressed the provisions of the CLASS Act, the legislation introduced by Kennedy in March that the disability provisions in his reform bill are based on.
Workers age 18 and older would be automatically enrolled for the disability insurance, making it their responsibility to opt-out, and would pay premiums most likely through payroll deductions at work, said Garner. “If the employer wants to do the deduction — there’s no employer mandate in this as well — [then] the employer can do it. If he does not want to do it, we’ve asked the Secretary of HHS to set up an alternative way that your premium can be collected,” she said.
There will be no preexisting condition exclusions and workers would become eligible after five years of contributing to the program, with premiums based on age. “Unless there’s a person in this room who can truly predict that they know exactly where they’re going to be this time tomorrow night, nobody is excused from worrying about this issue,” said Garner. “You can put it off, you can not deal with it. But if you can’t predict that, then you’re right back with everyone else where this is 24-hour open enrollment into disability and having functional limitations.”
Harkin also addressed the Community Choice Act. He told supporters at the briefing that passing the act, which would give people with disabilities the choice of receiving care at home rather than an institution, is “a civil rights issue” and that “there is no health reform” without it.
Harkin said he met with President Barack Obama — a former member of the HELP Committee who co-sponsored the Community Choice Act when it was introduced in 2007 — and Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office on Health Reform, recently to discuss the matter. The president pledged his support, saying, “I consider it something we have to do,” said Harkin. “Now we have the president of the United States on our side in this effort,” he added.
