Yesterday, the CEO of the nation’s largest long-term care insurance company, Genworth, acknowledged the US needs a new model of LTC insurance that includes some government role. Tom McInerney estimated that between half and two-thirds of Americans simply cannot afford to buy insurance in the traditional private market. A 50-something can expect to pay an average of $2,500-$3,000-a-year for a typical [...]
Here is a political mystery: At least 44 million Americans are caring for aging parents or other relatives and friends. That’s more than one of every six adults in the US—an enormous voting block. Yet, their interests are largely ignored both in Washington and in state capitals. Now, the Altarum Institute, a non-partisan, Washington-based research organization, has come up with [...]
Cancer researchers are closer than ever to achieving their long-held dream of turning the disease from a death sentence to a chronic illness. This would be a remarkable scientific achievement. But while people may soon routinely live decades with their cancer in remission or even cured, they will not become immortal. Most will eventually suffer from some other debilitating condition and [...]
A landmark new study paints a dramatic picture of family caregivers: Nearly 44 million adults in the US are providing personal assistance for family members with disabilities or other care needs. That’s more than one out of every six adults. More than 34 million care for frail elders and nearly 4 million help children with disabilities. About 6.5 million care [...]
Federal regulations are finally catching up with a decade of seismic change in the delivery of Medicaid services. More than 650 pages of proposed new rules are aimed at overseeing managed care, which has become the standard health care delivery system for low-income adults and children, and is now being expanded to include both medical care and long-term supports and [...]
For all of its flaws, Medicare and Medicaid’s Nursing Home Compare five-star rating system gives consumers a head-start when searching for a facility. Now, the Kaiser Family Foundation has taken a closer look at the ratings, and reached some interesting conclusions: In a system that rates facilities from 1-5 stars, about one-third have low 1 or 2 star ratings, while [...]
A powerful bipartisan group of U.S. senators wants to improve medical care for older Americans with chronic disease. By doing so, they are taking an important step in improving the health and quality of life of these seniors. But so far at least, they are focusing on only half the problem. While older people with chronic conditions do need improved [...]
In a recent essay in The Washington Post, geriatrician and author Jerald Winakur described the recent hospital experience of his 91-year-old mother. You won’t be surprised to learn it was a nightmare: Poor pain management, overworked staff, insufficient training, little communication among physicians and no communication between his mom and the waves of medical professionals who treated her each day. [...]
Congressional Republicans agreed to a non-binding budget framework yesterday that would slow projected growth of Medicare, but not completely restructure the program as the House GOP wanted. House Republicans tried to use the budget process to fundamentally rewrite Medicare, turning it from an open-ended entitlement program to a model known as premium support. But the move was blocked by Senate [...]
Of all the complex rules that plague fee-for-service Medicare, few are harder to understand and potentially more important for seniors than observation status. By now, many older adults have heard the phrase. But they are still not clear what it means. A new study by AARP sheds some light on the consequences for seniors of hospital observation stays. But they [...]