The statistics simply are staggering. More than 728,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have contracted covid-19 over the past nine months. More than 100,000 have died—a number that has doubled since June. That is equal to roughly the entire population of San Mateo CA, or Green Bay WI. Four of every 10 covid-19 deaths in the US have [...]
Late last week, President Trump announced two new rules that he said would save Medicare enrollees billions of dollars in drug costs. They are unlikely to save a nickel. While there is a lot less to these new rules than President Trump claims, the real question is what steps President-elect Joe Biden and a divided Congress will take to lower [...]
An amazing thing happened in this year’s presidential election. A major party candidate proposed raising Social Security payroll taxes. And won. More than that, it was never even an issue. What ever happened to Social Security being the third rail of American politics? The candidate, of course, was Joe Biden. He proposed a quite detailed plan for reforming Social Security [...]
In his campaign, President-elect Joe Biden promised a wide range of policy changes aimed at supporting older adults, including paid leave and tax credits for families caring for older adults, significantly more funding for Medicaid community-based long-term services and supports, and significant reforms to Social Security The question will be how much can he get done, given other priorities and [...]
As with so many issues, there is a major gulf between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden when it comes to issues that directly affect older adults. Biden has proposed a long list of specific proposals. Trump has said remarkably little about what he’d do in a second term, and that silence extends to programs that affect seniors. [...]
The covid-19 pandemic has increased the burden on family caregivers and made Americans more insistent than ever on receiving their own care at home, rather than in a long-term care facility. Yet, they are in more denial than before the pandemic about the likelihood they or a loved one will need personal assistance at some time in their lives. As [...]
What has it been like to live in a nursing home during the covid-19 pandemic? Because access to facilities is so limited, it is hard to know. But, for the first time, a survey of residents tells a grim story of loneliness and isolation: 90 percent said they never left their campus, 60 percent said they never even went outside [...]
A national Coronavirus Commission on Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes has identified more than two dozen major flaws in the response of government and the nursing home industry to the covid-19 pandemic. However, the panel, created by the Trump Administration, was relatively passive in its recommendations for how to fix those shortcomings. It feels a bit like reading the [...]
Changes in technology, new government payment models, managed care, and consumer preferences all are shifting services for frail older adults and younger people with disabilities from facilities to home. These models will create new options for consumers and threaten to disrupt the business models of hospitals, traditional nursing homes, and other long-term care facilities. These care models come with a [...]
President Trump’s newest White House pandemic adviser, Scott Atlas, reportedly is advocating for the strategy of building “herd immunity” to stop the spread of coronavirus. Atlas, who is a neuroradiologist and fellow at the Hoover Institution, would allow the virus to spread as widely and quickly as possible to build immunity in the overall population. Think of it as the [...]