Adult day centers seem to have made it into the political debate in Washington, though not in a good way. In his nasty weekend back-and-forth with President Trump, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) suggested the White House has become an “adult care center” and wondered if the staff had “missed a shift” when Trump launched his Sunday Twitter storm. Yesterday, Rep [...]
Last week, the Senate quietly and unanimously passed a bill that would improve some Medicare benefits for people with chronic disease. The measure would do many good things but the most important is this: It would take important steps toward breaking down the wall between medical treatment and non-medical supports and services in Medicare, beginning a process that would make [...]
The still-evolving Senate Republican replacement for the Affordable Care Act could make health insurance unaffordable for more than 50 million middle-aged Americans by allowing insurers to raise premiums for those with pre-existing conditions. Other provisions would allow carriers to boost insurance costs for even health people aged 50-64. The bill would give states federal dollars to help subsidize those rate [...]
You probably saw the headline: Six die in a Florida nursing home in the wake of Hurricane Irma. They won’t be the last frail elders to die needlessly. Many frail seniors who were living on the edge are going to die in southeast Texas and Florida in the coming weeks. We will probably never know how many because most will [...]
Only about 89,000 people bought private long-term care insurance in 2016, a nearly 14 percent decline from 2015, according to an industry survey. Nearly all were bought in the individual market, though about 15,000 people purchased coverage through their jobs. The sales decline continues a stunning trend. At the market’s peak in 2002, consumers bought 750,000 traditional policies, eight times [...]
Older adults in the US may be making nearly one-third more, on average, than commonly thought, according to an important new study by two US Census Bureau researchers. Their report, published last month, finds that the median household income for those 65 and older was about $44,400 in 2012, significantly higher than the $33,800 previously reported by Census. The implications [...]
Have you seen the stories about new tests for Alzheimer’s Disease that supposedly are just around the corner? The claims: A simple blood test, an eye test, even a smell test that could show that you are at high risk for Alzheimer’s decades before you develop symptoms. They are promising, scary, and--so far--premature. Sadly, we’ve seen this movie before. Like [...]
Older adults in the US are better off, on average, than those in other countries, according to a new index developed by researchers at Columbia University and the University of Southern California. However, while US seniors do relatively well by quality of life measures such as social connections at work and across generations, they fall in the middle of the [...]
Two of the greatest sources of frustration for Medicare recipients and their families are observation status and the government’s incredibly complex appeals process. On Monday, a federal judge in Hartford CT, certified a class action lawsuit aimed at addressing both. The judge’s eventual decision in the case (Alexander v. Price) could have far-reaching effects on both the burgeoning use of [...]
For seven years, “repeal and replace” worked as a great glib political alliteration (see, I can do it too). It was key to Republicans winning control of Congress in 2012 and helped Donald Trump take the White House in 2016. But actually doing it, well, nobody knew it could be so hard. But why is it so tough? In short, [...]