Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) warned today that long-term care financing is "a major train wreck" and "heading for a national crisis." Corker, the senior Republican on the Senate Aging Committee, said he was very worried about the viability of private long-term care insurance and added , "there is no doubt there is a public sector role" in the future of financing [...]
The fate of many important health reforms aimed directly at seniors is in the hands of the Supreme Court. While the public has focused most of its attention on whether the High Court will strike down the individual mandate in the 2010 health reform law, the justices today are hearing arguments about another critical issue: What should happen to the rest of the Affordable Care [...]
The fiscal plan proposed this week by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) would profoundly change the way seniors and younger adults with disabilities receive health care and personal assistance. For many programs, it would reduce funding from today’s levels even though the population of those over 65 will double by mid-century. In many ways, it would end the [...]
Long-term care services are not on the front burner of the Presidential campaign. They are not on the back burner. They are, it seems, not even on the stove. Most presidential candidates don't care enough about long-term care services to bother to describe their views on issue. Of the five candidates surveyed by 15 national advocacy groups only two--President Obama and former [...]
In his 2013 budget released today, President Obama has proposed cutting $250 billion out of Medicare and $65 billion out of Medicaid over the next 10 years. Nursing homes,hospitals, and other providers would be paid less, while some Medicare beneficiares would have to pay more out of pocket. At the same time, federal spending for other critical senior services programs would be frozen--in many [...]
In a recent survey, The Washington Post asked white women and black women about their outlook and priorities when it comes to issues such as money, religion, and marriage. And in many cases, they found very big differences. But when it came to one issue, there was no disagreement at all. You guessed it: Caregiving. Nearly two-thirds of both African-American and white women worried about family [...]
Congress is slowly starving senior services programs. In the 2012 budget it passed as it was leaving town last weekend, Congress froze or cut spending for a broad range of government programs aimed at seniors and their caregivers--everything from Meals on Wheels to long-term care ombudsman training to information and referral services. Most of these cuts were not dramatic and only a handful [...]
This week’s failure of the deficit super committee may have saved Medicare and Medicaid from spending reductions for now, but don’t kid yourself: These programs remain squarely in the fiscal bulls-eye. As part of last August’s deal to extend the federal debt limit, Congress agreed that if the super committee was unable to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over [...]
On Tuesday, Nov 8, I'll be moderating an important discussion on the future long-term care in an era of shrinking government. My fellow panelists will be Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research for LeadingAge, a trade group that represents non-profit providers ; Len Fishman, the CEO of Hebrew Senior Life, an innovative senior services provider in Boston, [...]
In a move that shocked many in the elder care community, California has ended funding for its adult day care program. The question now is what will happen to the nearly 5,000 others that operate throughout the country. California's $169 million program serves about 35,000 low-income seniors and other adults with disabilities. The program will end in January when state Medi-Cal funding (the state's [...]