If the price of hamburger, or tuna went up by 83 percent, you might consider training the kids to prefer tofu cutlets.

If the price of your next car jumped 126 percent, odds are you might keep your current, wheezing beast longer and buy some really good walking shoes.

But if premiums in your group rate long term care insurance program were going up 83 to 126 percent, what are you going to do? And that’s the dilemma facing 264,000 of the 274,000 federal worker and retirees covered by the LTC program. While premiums will remain the same for about 10,000 people, the vast majority of those in the federal LTC program will see premiums rise an ‘average’ of $111 per month.

The cost of long term care has risen dramatically in recent years. And people are living longer, and requiring the special help covered by the policies for longer time periods. At the same time, because of low interest rate and high-outlays to policy-holders, the number of companies offering the coverage has dropped from 102 in the year 2000 to about 14 today. Only one insurance carrier, John Hancock, bid in the current federal contract which will run for 7 years. The last time premiums were raised they went up an average of 17 percent, with some jumping as much as 25 percent. Feds who are shell-shocked by the new round of premium hikes suddenly view 2009 as the good-old-days.

Feds and retirees have until the end of this month to make a decision. To minimize the premium hike they can downsize their current policies, by changing the length of time they would be covered, the daily rate their policy would pay, change the inflation-protection feature or, as a last resort, drop coverage. And with the odds in favor of most of us needing LTC benefits some time in our lives, is not having it really an option?

Many people hope/expect/pray Congress will do something. Members have called for hearings, but time marches on and the numbers about past and current costs, plus future estimates, are there. What if 7 years from now, nobody bids on the program. Will Congress federalize it. Keep it and pay for care with taxpayer dollars and premiums from the insured? That’s a long way off, but it could happen.

Meantime, here’s a sobering email that Professional Managers Association president Michael Leszcz, sent to members last week:

”I know that many of us are concerned about the premium increases for the Federal Long Term Care Insurance we carry — some of us have paid since day one ~14 years ago!

I was reminded of the value of if-you-need-it when a story came across the net that John Nash’s (A Brilliant Mind) estate has put his Nobel Prize Medal for Economics up to be auctioned October 17, 2016. As you may know, John was a mathematical genius but “wandered around” after receiving his degree and worked at several jobs eventually being awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on Game Theory, although he suffered from schizophrenia. John and his wife died in a taxi cab accident last year. His wife’s fear was that they would both be gone and no one would be left to take care of their son John. Although the son had inherited his father’s mathematical genius and graduated from Tufts, in a 60 minute interview several years ago it was revealed that the son also suffers from schizophrenia; perhaps the estate needs the money as the auction is expected to bring $2m +.

We will await the hearings that are proposed by the Hill to look into the egregious increases in the premiums for the LTC Insurance, but unfortunately I don’t expect much as they still appear to be operating in a gridlock mode!

Stay tuned — we will keep you posted”  —M.L.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Jory Heckman

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934, his company came to be called “Lego”, from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play well.”

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