THE GLORY ROAD

The old people drift about like lost lambs seeking the succor of their youth. They know full well it will never again come to them. There's Stella, and Joe who's wheelchair bound; they are both survivors of Nazi Concentration Camps. There's Mildred who was a navy test pilot during the Second World War. Mildred has difficulty locating her apartment and figuring out what she's to do when in the dining room. Most walk with walkers with painstakingly careful strides about the assisted living facility which is their home. Most wonder, in a secret place in their minds, when the ambulance will come to greet them.
 
These are our grandparents, delicate, unable to manage their lives without help; the very people deserving of our compassion, and gratefulness for our survival in the world.
 
Still, they are treated with unconscious dismissal by the insurance companies they believed would be their saviors. Marginalized carelessly, they live their lives in blyth ignorance of the dark corporate web determining their fate.
 
There's a host of insurance companies lacking in scruples, but one currently reins above them all. That is Conseco. Acquisitions of companies burgeoning with poorly written long-term care policies propelled Conseco to the heights of stuffed balance sheets, nine-figure salaries, two million dollar weddings, the zenith of Conseco's heyday. When the country's economy suddenly went South Conseco found themselves with LTC policies reflecting increased lifespans, increased applications for benefits, shrinkage of premiums paid, and the nose dive their stock took.
 
Conseco, the insurance commissioner of Pennsylvania, and a bevy of high-priced attorneys effectuated a solution: An independent trust to serve as a stand-alone, non insurance company, entity to hold and service some 142,000 LTC policies. Furthermore, the elderly policyholders were not to be given a voice in this decision, and not even to be informed of the trust's existance. It would be called, misleadingly, The Senior Health Insurance Company of Pennsylvania, sounding very much like an insurance company.
 
Once again in the current lexicon this misinformation about the trust's supposed balance and transparancy puts forth a cleverly constructed myth about the long-term care of the American elderly. 
 
Will it ever come to the attention of our congressional representatives? Probably not. To quote a famous phrase: Let 'em eat cake!
 
Bill Silverman