Isolation and loneliness are serious problems for older adults. They become less mobile, their friends and relatives die, hearing loss and other physical limitations make it harder to communicate with others, and seniors are often reluctant to even try to make new friends. Young people, they say, are not interested, and, as for other older people, why bother, they will [...]
As we age, become frail, and need personal assistance, we will increasingly require paid aides to help us with routine daily activities, such as bathing, dressing, or cooking. Demand for those aides will increase by 50 percent over just the next decade, to 3 million. But where will they come from? Aides are poorly paid, have little opportunity for advancement, [...]
President Trump has proposed deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants and backed curbs on legal immigration into the US. The president’s aggressive views on immigration have generated intense debate over the past year, but much of that discussion has ignored a key issue: What immigration restrictions would mean for the long-term health of Social Security. A new study by my Urban Institute [...]
While most proposals in President Trump’s newly released 2019 budget are unlikely to become law, the fiscal framework does show the White House’s priorities for government over the coming year. And those apparently don’t include support for older adults, younger people with disabilities, or their families. For example, the budget would: Restructure the Medicare drug benefit to reduce costs for [...]
The huge two-year budget agreement reached by Congress early this morning will, for the first time, allow Medicare to pay for some long-term supports and services. Medicare managed care plans, called Medicare Advantage (MA), can now include non-medical services, such as home-delivered meals or rides to a doctor, in their benefit packages. The bill includes other changes to Medicare, including [...]
Here’s a word association game: I say, “long-term care” and you will probably respond, “nursing home.” But the truth is that there are nearly twice as many assisted living (ALF) and other residential care facilities (more than 30,000 in 2014) in the US than nursing homes (about 15,000). And there are more than 800,000 people living in residential care facilities, [...]
Two years ago, the Long-Term Care Financing Collaborative proposed a public catastrophic long-term care insurance program. In effect, people would use private insurance, savings, or home equity to pay for the first few years of their care needs, then the government would pick up costs for people with true catastrophic needs. Today, two highly-respected long-term care experts offered an important [...]
Last year, a friend with complex medical needs had multiple stays at a skilled nursing facility (SNF). He was a member of a Medicare Advantage managed care plan and, as a result, could choose among only a handful of in-network facilities within a reasonable distance of his home. The care he received at the available facility was poor and since [...]
The Trump Administration announced last week that it will allow states to require Medicaid recipients to work, take job training, or do community service to stay eligible for the program, which provides both medical and long-term care services for people with low incomes. Ten states have asked to make this change, and the administration has given the greenlight to the [...]
When Congress and the White House develop health or long-term care policy, they hear plenty from providers, drug or medical device makers, and scores of other lobbyists and advocates for various interests. But they rarely hear from family caregivers—those people in the trenches who struggle every day to assist their loved ones. On Monday night, Congress passed a bipartisan bill [...]