Congress took two big steps this week that could have a major impact on seniors and younger people with disabilities. The one that got the most attention, of course, was the Senate’s failure to pass a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. The second, which was barely noticed, was a series of key decisions by House Republicans on how much [...]
The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington (DC) based group that develops consensus policy solutions, has proposed a series of reforms aimed at helping families finance long-term care for themselves and their loved ones. The proposal aims to encourage more people to buy private long-term care insurance, including through Medicare, and would provide a new Medicare respite benefit for family caregivers. [...]
The uberization of senior services is all the rage. You can download an app and order up a home visit from a doctor. You can get home delivered groceries or prepared foods. And, of course, you can get a ride. While these services were designed primarily for the young and overworked, there are real potential benefits for older adults and [...]
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s health care plan would substantially increase costs for people age 50-64 who buy insurance in the individual market and for the frail elderly and younger people with disabilities who receive Medicaid long-term care benefits. In some ways, the Senate plan would be marginally better than the House-passed health bill. In others, it would be much [...]
The Senate’s version of the House-passed American Health Care Act will almost certainly include a fundamental change in the way the federal government contributes to Medicaid. Over time, that new structure would result in deep cuts in the federal contribution to Medicaid and ultimately reduce long-term care benefits for frail older adults as well as younger people with disabilities. These [...]
If you or a loved one needs long-term care, where you live matters…a lot. A new report by AARP shows wide variation in the quality of supports and services among states—whether delivered at home or in a nursing facility. While it found important improvements across states, it also identified significant shortcomings, even in the highest-rated states. The best states to [...]
You probably know by now that last week’s snap election was a disaster for UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party. But you may not know that one issue that cost the Tories their strong parliamentary majority was a proposal that came to be known as the “dementia tax.” It is a story that has some important lessons [...]
The Trump Administration believes that caring for babies is so important that employers should give their parents up to six weeks of paid leave. It apparently doesn’t believe it is as important, or as disruptive to work life, to care for aging parents or other relatives in need of personal assistance. That, at least, is the message it is sending [...]
Americans age 40 and older continued to be flummoxed by the challenges of long-term care financing, but increasingly believe that Medicare ought to provide such supports and services. According to a new poll by the Associated Press-University of Chicago NORC Center for Public Affairs Research (AP-NORC), support for a Medicare long-term care benefit has grown significantly over the past five [...]
The best that can be said about President Trump’s 2018 budget and older adults: It could have been worse. In a fiscal plan focused on historic domestic spending cuts, programs for older adults were hit by substantial reductions, though not slashed as deeply as other domestic programs. Medicare was largely untouched. So was Social Security for seniors, although Trump would [...]