Lots of buzz about the Oct. 20 Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sale of Erickson Retirement Communities, one of the nation's premier developers of Continuing Care Retirement Communites. CCRCs are campus-like settings that promise lifetime care for seniors, from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care. These facilities operate on several different business models but Erickson, like many others, requires a hefty, [...]
Elder abuse is one of those issues we prefer to not talk about. And, in truth, there is much we don't know about it. For instance, even the most basic data on how often abuse happens are notoriously unreliable. Yet, we know it occurs. And far too often. Financial scams, sometimes orchestrated by trusted advisers and friends; physical abuse by caregivers; physical abuse of caregivers (I [...]
I spent yesterday morning at a Kaiser Family Foundation panel discussion on the CLASS Act, the national long-term care insurance program being considered as part of health reform. The panelists, who included Senate Health Committee aide Connie Garner and a number of advocates for long-term care reform, were upbeat about the possibility that CLASS will be included in a final health [...]
When family caregivers are under a lot of stress, the chances increase that their loved ones will have to move to a nursing home. That's the conlusion of an important new study by my Urban Institute colleagues Brenda Spillman and Sharon Long. That conclusion may seem obvious to caregivers, but Spillman and Long back it up with some hard data. They found that [...]
The other day, long-term care insurance gadfly Stephen Moses called me "an advocate of more government financing and an enemy of private LTC financing alternatives." I assume he said this because I believe that reforms such as the CLASS Act, which would create a national long-term care insurance system, would be a far better way to pay for this assistance [...]
In a bit of surprising news, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont) added some key long-term care amendments to his health reform bill. The provisions, first proposed by senators John Kerry (D-Mass), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would all make home and community based care more accessible under Medicaid. Currently, Medicaid is only required to provide long-term [...]
I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Congress' latest health reform effort does almost nothing to repair our tattered long-term care system. The massive health reform bill proposed today by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) touches nearly every part of the health system: Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, hospitals, doctors, you name it. Except for one critical element. The proposal all [...]
I moderated two interesting panels today at a long-term care conference sponsored by Genworth, the big insurance company. The first panel included author and family caregiving expert Virginia Morris, National Family Caregivers Association president Suzanne Mintz, and Ancil Alexander, a home health aide who visits clients in the South Bronx. Virginia talked about the desperate need caregivers have for information, Suzanne discussed the [...]
The wonderful families I met while writing Caring for Our Parents had many things in common: The made tremendous sacrifices to help frail parents or spouses, they brought deep love and great patience to this responsibility. And under great physical, emotional, and financial stress, they often ignored their own health. It may sound selfish, but if you are assisting a loved one, [...]
In the past two weeks, The Washington Post published two op-ed columns on the end-of-life provision in the House's health reform bill, one by Post editorial writer Charles Lane and the other by house conservative Charles Krauthammer. The proposal would permit Medicare to pay doctors for discussing issues of death and dying with their patients. But the two columns, each [...]