Why not make insurance for long-term care services and supports part of health care coverage? It is a radical idea that turns the current model—which often treats long-term care insurance as an element of retirement planning—entirely on its head. The concept isn’t new. John Rother, who ran public policy for AARP for many years, talked about integrating long-term services and [...]
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 [...]
We’ve all seen the articles in Forbes, Kiplingers, or U.S. News trumpeting the best states to live in retirement. A key measure for them all: Low taxes. What you may not know is that states actively compete with one another to provide tax breaks to older residents—especially to wealthy seniors. This competiton is similar to the way states use tax [...]
Private long-term care insurance can be an important tool to protect against the risk of needing costly personal assistance in old age. But two respected financial economists conclude it is very expensive relative to the benefits it provides and may not be appropriate for many buyers. At the same time, a new consumer brief from the Society of Actuaries suggests how much wealth you should have for coverage to make sense. The research paper from economists [...]
Want to see the future of adult day programs for the frail elderly and adults with disabilities? Just watch what is happening in California, where 26,000 participants and the centers that care for them are struggling to manage state budget cuts and huge uncertainty. Adult day programs can be a key support for the frail elderly or other adults with [...]
Government funding for programs to support aging in place was still growing through 2008, but much more slowly than in the past. At the same time, states were making it harder to enroll, limiting benefits, and forcing people to wait longer before they could participate in these programs. And all that was happening before Medicaid home care faced major budget cuts in the face [...]
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 [...]