Bruce Chernof, M.D., president and CEO of The SCAN Foundation, Long-Term Care Commission member

Q:  What are the top issues the Long-Term Care Commission needs to address?

A: We need to address the knowledge deficits that exist in the general public about long-term care needs. And we need a new set of tools that helps people better prepare as they age.

Q: How crucial is educating the public?

A: We need to move beyond the LTC framework that scares people, to a discussion that we’re all going to age, and we’ll all have some level of need, and we need to plan for that in a way that supports independence, dignity and choice.

Q: What do you think of payment cuts proposed in the Ryan budget and MedPAC report?

A: I respect the recommendations, that each of them is trying to solve a set of problems in a particular way. I want to take a step back and say, what is the problem we’re trying to solve? I would offer the problem we’re trying to solve is the current programs were never really built with the breadth and depth of current LTC needs in mind. The commission could be helpful coming up with an insurance pool that spreads the risk properly, in many ways to take the pressure off the public programs.