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 [...]
I got back last night from two days in St. Paul, Minn, where I worked with a few dozen deeply commited people who are looking for concrete solutions to the challenges of long-term care. The program was sponsored by the Citizen's League, and it brought together nursing home executives, retired physicans, lobbyists, state officials, advocates for the elderly and the disabled, care [...]
I'm off to St. Paul to particpate in a two-day workshop on long-term care sponsored by the Minnnesota Citizens League, a non-profit dedicated to finding common ground on important policy issues among business, government, community organizations, and individuals. The progam, entitled Creating Incentives for Personal Responsibility in Long-Term Care, has exactly the right goal: Finding community solutions to the challenges of caring for [...]
In recent weeks, we've heard end-of-life counseling compared to government run "death boards." This rhetoric is beyond irresponsible, but it lays bare a very important problem--too many of us have no idea what living wills and other advance directives do, or how they work. So, a brief primer: In short, these legal documents allow you to tell doctors and hospitals [...]
The most bizarre episode so far in Washington's health care debate is the persistent rumor that the House version of reform would force Medicare patients to participate in counseling sessions where they would "learn how to end their life sooner." This is a lie. The House bill would do no such thing. Yet the myth persists, thanks to constant repetition by conservative radio talk show hosts such [...]
How much can technology help the frail elderly live independently? The promise of high-tech assistive devices and monitoring systems has attracted the attention of many long-term care families, desperate for new ways to keep an eye on mom. Not surprisingly, some big companies, including GE and Cisco, as well as smaller start-ups and university research labs, are increasingly interested as well. [...]
The House Energy & Commerce Committee has added Senator Ted Kennedy's national long-term care insurance proposal (the CLASS Act) to its version of health reform legislation. This is another remarkable step forward for the measure although, as I've noted before, the fate of this and other long-term care provisions won't be decided until Congress writes a final health care bill sometime this [...]