The incoming Trump Administration has been sending mixed signals about the fate of Medicare. But if Trump advisers and GOP lawmakers are serious about slashing government spending it is hard to see how they will ignore the program, which last year cost $850 billion and accounted for about one out of every six dollars the federal government spent. Trump’s problem: [...]
This year, California took the second of two steps to allow residents with unlimited assets to participate in its Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS) program. Advocates hoped the move would make the program far more widely available. Conservative critics feared it would become a budget-busting open door for the wealthy to take advantage of a public program. Both were [...]
Donald Trump’s return to the White House, coupled with Republican control of the Senate and possibly of the House could result in a far more limited government role in the care of older adults and younger people with disabilities. Most immediately, Trump’s proposed mass deportations will make the current shortage of care workers much worse, increasing the burden on family [...]
For all the false talk about the burdens immigrants put on the US health care system, it is important to remember the other side of the story: Without foreign-born health workers, the US systems for medical and long-term care could, quite literally, collapse. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump vows “the largest deportation operation in history” to say nothing of closing [...]
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is working hard to win the support of older voters, but what would she do to address their many concerns if she is elected president? In a campaign that has not yet shown many of its policy cards, Harris has offered only the roughest sketch of a governing agenda. But her time as vice president [...]
Politicians love to say they “won’t touch” Social Security, as if leaving the program alone will protect older adults. In reality, a new study by two of my Urban Institute colleagues finds that failing to fix the program’s looming financial shortfall would throw 3.8 million seniors into poverty by 2045. Median promised benefits would decline by $5,900 (in 2022 dollars). [...]
The Republican party platform, orchestrated by former President Trump, is filled with promises for those it calls “our Great Seniors.” But there is little or no real policy behind most of those campaign pledges. And the document is filled with many irreconcilable contradictions. The platform will be the GOP’s election-year policy framework coming out of its upcoming July 15-18 nominating [...]
Late last week, President Trump announced two new rules that he said would save Medicare enrollees billions of dollars in drug costs. They are unlikely to save a nickel. While there is a lot less to these new rules than President Trump claims, the real question is what steps President-elect Joe Biden and a divided Congress will take to lower [...]
As with so many issues, there is a major gulf between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden when it comes to issues that directly affect older adults. Biden has proposed a long list of specific proposals. Trump has said remarkably little about what he’d do in a second term, and that silence extends to programs that affect seniors. [...]
A national Coronavirus Commission on Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes has identified more than two dozen major flaws in the response of government and the nursing home industry to the covid-19 pandemic. However, the panel, created by the Trump Administration, was relatively passive in its recommendations for how to fix those shortcomings. It feels a bit like reading the [...]