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Authors To Discuss the Challenges of Family Caregiving

On Thursday, I'll be participating in an ambitous program sponsored by AARP where  10 authors will discuss their experiences and views about the challenges of family caregiving. Most of us have had the personal experience of caring for family members and know about the subject first-hand. Some of our books, such as my own Caring for Our Parents, use the personal stories of caregivers to describe the nation's [...]

By |2011-11-28T19:17:29-05:00November 28th, 2011|family caregivers|2 Comments

What the Super Committee’s Failure Means for Senior Health Programs

This week’s failure of the deficit super committee may have saved Medicare and Medicaid from spending reductions for now, but don’t kid yourself: These programs remain squarely in the fiscal bulls-eye. As part of last August’s deal to extend the federal debt limit, Congress agreed that if the super committee was unable to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over [...]

How About Using Social Security to Pay for Long-Term Care?

In the wake of the White House decision to abandon the CLASS Act, policy analysts are struggling to find some workable solution to the growing problem of how to finance long-term care costs. So how about using Social Security?  One versionof this idea was proposed years ago by Yung-Ping Chen, now professor emeritus of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts. He'd let Social Security recipients trade off a small portion [...]

“We’ve Got to Get Real About Medicare and Medicaid”

Yesterday, I joined three of the most creative thinkers in the long-term care policy world to discuss the future of  personal care services for the elderly and disabled in an era of shrinking government resources. My fellow panelists at the event, sponsored by The Urban Institute, were Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research at Leading Age, [...]

Looking at Long-Term Care as the Government’s Role Shrinks

On Tuesday, Nov 8, I'll be moderating an important discussion on the future long-term care in an era of shrinking government. My fellow panelists will be Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research for LeadingAge, a trade group that represents non-profit providers ; Len Fishman, the CEO of Hebrew Senior Life, an innovative senior services provider in Boston, [...]