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California Ended Its Asset Test For Medicaid Long-Term Care. What Happened??

This year, California took the second of two steps to allow residents with unlimited assets to participate in its Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS) program. Advocates hoped the move would make the program far more widely available. Conservative critics feared it would become a budget-busting open door for the wealthy to take advantage of a public program. Both were [...]

By |2024-11-25T16:42:13-05:00November 19th, 2024|Medicaid|0 Comments

What A Trump Administration Will Mean For Older Adults

Donald Trump’s return to the White House, coupled with Republican control of the Senate and possibly of the House could result in a far more limited government role in the care of older adults and younger people with disabilities. Most immediately, Trump’s proposed mass deportations will make the current shortage of care workers much worse, increasing the burden on family [...]

By |2024-11-11T11:06:27-05:00November 11th, 2024|Donald Trump|0 Comments

Washington State Voters Keep Public Long-Term Care Insurance

Voters in Washington State have decided to keep the state’s first-in-the-nation public long term care insurance program. On Tuesday, they easily rejected a ballot initiative that would have killed the far-reaching law. The WA Cares law provides up to $36,500 in long-term care insurance benefits, with the amount increasing with inflation. It is funded with a payroll tax surcharge of [...]

By |2024-11-07T12:25:31-05:00November 7th, 2024|long term care reform, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Long-Term Care And Family Caregiving Finally May Get A Policy Moment

For decades, the desperate need for government to help support middle-income frail older adults, younger people with disabilities, and their family members has been clear. Until now, lawmakers largely have done nothing about it. But that finally may be changing. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President, has proposed an ambitious expansion of traditional Medicare that would, for [...]

By |2024-10-30T10:36:13-04:00October 30th, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Key Questions About Harris’s Historic Medicare Home Care Idea

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris says she wants to create a home-based long-term care benefit under Medicare. She’s suggesting an historic change in the health care system for older adults and some younger people with disabilities. But her idea raises important political and policy questions. Harris describes the broad outlines of her plan in a hard-to-find fact sheet here. Oddly, [...]

By |2024-10-15T10:47:12-04:00October 15th, 2024|Medicare|0 Comments

Harris Would Create A New Medicare Benefit For Long-term Care

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has backed an earth-shattering idea: For the first time, traditional Medicare would pay for personal assistance  at home and related long-term care. Currently, only Medicaid and certain Medicare managed care programs provide long-term care benefits. Harris endorsed the idea in an appearance on the television show The View and her staff heavily promoted her initiative [...]

By |2024-10-08T16:27:41-04:00October 8th, 2024|long-term care|0 Comments

Mass Deportations Of Immigrant Health Workers Would Put Patients At Risk

For all the false  talk about the burdens immigrants put on the US health care system, it is important to remember the other side of the story: Without foreign-born health workers, the US systems for medical and long-term care could, quite literally, collapse. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump vows “the largest deportation operation in history”  to say nothing of closing [...]

By |2024-09-26T16:01:55-04:00September 26th, 2024|Health Care|0 Comments

Harris And Trump Focus On Young Children, What About Caregivers Of Frail Elders?

What role do family members play in caring for frail older adults and younger people with disabilities? What can society do to make it easier for them? I got thinking about this when Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance suggested that families could lower their daycare costs if “grandma and grandpa” took on more child care responsibility. Who Is Caring [...]

By |2024-09-18T10:47:53-04:00September 18th, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

What A President Harris Would Mean For Seniors

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is working hard to win the support of older voters, but what would she do to address their many concerns if she is elected president? In a campaign that has not yet shown many of its policy cards, Harris has offered only the roughest sketch of a governing agenda. But her time as vice president [...]

By |2024-08-22T16:01:42-04:00August 22nd, 2024|Kamala Harris|0 Comments

Beware The Hype About That Alzheimer’s Blood Test

The idea that a simple blood can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease is getting an enormous amount of attention. And someday, these tests may have important benefits. But before you run to your doctor demanding a blood draw, keep in mind that this test has important limitations. Much of the buzz is over new research by Sebastian Palmqvist (paywall) of Lund University [...]

By |2024-08-05T10:47:48-04:00August 5th, 2024|dementia|0 Comments