Ever since the death of Brittany Maynard--the 30-year old with terminal brain cancer who ended her own life last November-- the issue of physician-assisted suicide has received an enormous amount of attention. Now it is back in the headlines as many states consider laws permitting the practice. It is an important and passionate debate, but for the vast majority of people, it misses [...]
We spend more on our health care as we age. No news there. But you may be surprised to learn that all health spending is not created equal. For most of us, as long as we can stay out of the hospital or a nursing home, our costs are relatively modest--and steady--even as we grow older. But that can change [...]
Ask a physician why he prescribes unnecessary tests or treatments, and he’s likely to say he’s responding to demands from his patients (or trying to avoid a lawsuit). But a new study in the journal JAMA Oncology finds that perception may be wildly wrong. The study, by Keerthi Gogineni, Katherine L. Shuman, Derek Chinn, Nicole B. Gabler, and Ezekiel Emanuel [...]
It is no secret that fewer consumers are buying long-term care insurance—annual sales are only about one-third of what they were a decade ago. But it turns out that those who are still buying are purchasing less coverage than ever, even though long-term care costs are rising. When industry leader Genworth Financial Inc., which sold about one-third all traditional LTC [...]
The Alzheimer’s Association predicts that finding a drug treatment for memory loss could save families and the government $935 billion over 10 years. But its report tells only part of the story and ignores key costs, including costs of the therapy itself. The group could have included an estimated price of those therapies in its report but chose not to, citing the uncertainties [...]
President Obama’s 2016 budget would make important changes in the way personal care is delivered to older Americans and younger people with disabilities. The biggest: A plan that could be a major step towards ending Medicaid’s long-standing bias in favor of nursing homes. At the same time, the fiscal plan would modestly boost funding for some senior services programs. While [...]
Like millions of others, Kathy Kenyon is trying as best she can to care for her parents—both of whom have some dementia. The health care system won't let her. In a presentation to the prestigious Institute of Medicine a couple of weeks ago, Kathy described in painful detail what is it like to try to navigate the disorganized maze we call health care. Kathy [...]
Note to President Obama: Families don’t just care for young children. They also care for aging parents, spouses, and adults with disabilities. In his State of the Union address last night and in an announcement last week, Obama proposed a number of steps aimed at helping working parents care for sick kids. Among his ideas: requiring employers to offer up to seven [...]
Large multi-agency, multi-state hospices are fast become the primary source of end-of-life care in the U.S. According to a new study, chains cared for nearly half of all hospice patients in 2011, a dramatic increase from a decade before when small organizations (mostly non-profits) provided three-quarters of all care. And my own review of their financial reports suggests the biggest chains [...]
A technical rule change engineered by House Republicans on the first day of the new Congress may signal the beginning of a major battle over the future of the Social Security Disability program—and, more broadly, other federal programs for people with disabilities. The immediate issue is the fate of the SSDI trust fund, which is expected to become exhausted in [...]