In his newly-unveiled 2017 budget, President Obama has proposed little or no increase in federal funding for key senior services programs, higher consumer out-of-pocket costs for brand-name drugs and home health services under Medicare, higher Medicare premiums for upper-income seniors, and reductions in federal subsidies to Medicare Advantage managed care plans. The budget also includes many other changes in the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Infections are all-too-common in nursing homes. And all-too-often facilities treat these conditions with large doses of antibiotics. Now the Obama Administration has announced a major initiative aimed at dramatically reducing the use of these drugs. And the effort has the potential to fundamentally change the way nursing homes operate—and the way residents receive care. Today, antibiotic use is routine in nursing facilities. [...]
The Obama Administration has announced its preliminary plans for the next White House Conference on Aging, which would be held next year. It would be the first such conference in a decade and could be quite valuable, given the rapid aging of the U.S. population and vast changes in the medical and long-term care environment since the last session. 2015 [...]
Federal senior services programs are in for another very difficult year. In the 2015 budget he released yesterday, President Obama proposed freezing or even cutting spending for many key programs. And Obama’s blueprint may be the highwater mark for many initiatives, which are likely to see even deeper cuts as the budget works its way through Congress. Key House Republicans have [...]
You've probably seen the headlines from President Obama’s 2014 budget: He’d slow the growth of Social Security benefits by changing the way payments are increased for inflation, trim Medicare by cutting payments to providers and making high-income retirees pay more out of pocket for their health care, and he’d protect Medicaid from budget cuts. But you may not have seen [...]
The White House finally appointed the last three members of the congressional long-term care commission, making it possible for the panel to get down to work. The nominations, which were supposed to have been made by Feb 1, are Henry Claypool, Executive Vice President of the American Association of People with Disabilities and a top aide at the Department of Health and Human [...]
With the presidential election in less than two weeks, consumers, advocates, and providers should pay attention to what Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would do about long-term supports and services for the frail elderly and younger people with disabilities. It is hard to know for sure, because neither man has said much. Yet, between the lines, there are important messages. [...]
You can't escape the seemingly ubiquitous news stories about the latest cure for Alzheimer's. There is only one problem: None of them are true. Some are simply frauds. But many are over-hyped interpretations of serious research. You know the story...In what may be a major breakthrough in the battle against Alzheimer's disease... Over at Changingaging.org. Dr. Al Power wrote a terrific blog post [...]