LEAD Coalition Urges Swift Action on ABLE Act

from the LEAD Coalition:
Sixty-one LEAD Coalition member organizations and supporters wrote to congressional sponsors of the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2013 (S. 313/H.R.647) encouraging enactment this year. Read the letter.

Today, over five million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease -- and millions more

have vascular, Lewy body or frontotemporal dementia. It is expected that 13

million or more Americans will have Alzheimer’s disease by 2050, barring a major

scientific breakthrough in the near-term. For many individuals and families facing

the enormous financial toll of a typically decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s

disease or a related dementia,

i the ABLE Act will provide an important tool to

avoid impoverishment and dependence on public assistance programs. This is

consistent the intent of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (Public Law 111-375)

and the resulting National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease Goal 3, Strategy

3.C: Assist Families in Planning for Future Care Needs

ii.

LEAD

Leaders Engaged on Alzheimer’s Disease

The ABLE Act will allow individuals with physical, intellectual or cognitive

disabilities and their families to save their private funds for the future just like

every other American. The ABLE Act builds upon a highly successful taxdeferred

education savings platform to begin addressing the challenges of paying

for quality long-term care services by establishing a new subsection within

Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code. Individuals with disabilities would be

permitted to establish ABLE accounts into which they and others could make taxdeferred

contributions. ABLE account funds then could be used for essential

expenses including medical and dental care, community-based supports,

assistive technology, housing and transportation. Such qualified expenditures

would supplement, but not supplant, benefits provided through private insurance,

Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the beneficiary’s employment,

and other sources. The legislation also contains Medicaid fraud protection

against abuse and a Medicaid payback provision when the beneficiary passes

away.