President Obama’s 2016 budget would make important changes in the way personal care is delivered to older Americans and younger people with disabilities. The biggest: A plan that could be a major step towards ending Medicaid’s long-standing bias in favor of nursing homes. At the same time, the fiscal plan would modestly boost funding for some senior services programs. While [...]
Like millions of others, Kathy Kenyon is trying as best she can to care for her parents—both of whom have some dementia. The health care system won't let her. In a presentation to the prestigious Institute of Medicine a couple of weeks ago, Kathy described in painful detail what is it like to try to navigate the disorganized maze we call health care. Kathy [...]
Note to President Obama: Families don’t just care for young children. They also care for aging parents, spouses, and adults with disabilities. In his State of the Union address last night and in an announcement last week, Obama proposed a number of steps aimed at helping working parents care for sick kids. Among his ideas: requiring employers to offer up to seven [...]
Large multi-agency, multi-state hospices are fast become the primary source of end-of-life care in the U.S. According to a new study, chains cared for nearly half of all hospice patients in 2011, a dramatic increase from a decade before when small organizations (mostly non-profits) provided three-quarters of all care. And my own review of their financial reports suggests the biggest chains [...]
A technical rule change engineered by House Republicans on the first day of the new Congress may signal the beginning of a major battle over the future of the Social Security Disability program—and, more broadly, other federal programs for people with disabilities. The immediate issue is the fate of the SSDI trust fund, which is expected to become exhausted in [...]
Just about everything you think you know about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is wrong. And because the conventional wisdom is so off-track, so are the ways we—both family members and professionals-- respond to those with dementia. That's Dr. G. Allen Power's provocative message. He wants us to stop thinking that people with dementia are victims of a terrible debilitating disease that destroys their memory [...]
Congress has again frozen funding for most senior services programs, from Meals on Wheels and other nutrition programs to falls prevention and state health insurance assistance programs (SHIPs). This has been the trend throughout most of the Obama Administration. But it may be about to come to an end, as we near a time when federal funding for senior programs [...]
What if they gave a managed care plan and nobody came? That seems to be the problem with California’s ambitious effort to enroll more than 400,000 low-income seniors and younger people with disabilities into a fully-integrated care program that covers both medical treatment and long-term supports and services. The idea has enormous promise, but relatively few Californians seem willing to [...]
For the first time since 2010, Congress may be about to acknowledge that people with disabilities cannot have a decent quality of life with limited financial resources and modest government support. It is on the verge of approving the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, which would create tax-free savings accounts to assist some people with disabilities while not jeopardize their [...]
Assisted living facilities (ALFs) may be going the way of cable TV. Still around, but with a limited future. Their residents are changing. Even as their needs become more complicated, they are demanding less institutional-like care. At the same time, assisted living will have to find its place in a world where medical and social care are becoming better coordinated [...]