If you are 65 or older, should you expect to need a significant level of long-term care? And can you predict that need? The short answers are yes. And no. You absolutely should expect to need that care. And, unless you already are very poor, you should plan to pay for at least some of it. But it is impossible [...]
A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has issued a scathing report on the state of nursing homes in the US. Operators, owners, regulators, and payors all are failing patients and residents, the report said. “The way in which the United States finances, delivers, and regulates care in nursing home settings is ineffective, inefficient, fragmented, [...]
Soon, California residents with personal care needs will be eligible for Medicaid long-term care no matter how much money and other assets they have. On July 1, the state will increase the program’s asset limit from $2,000 for an individual to $130,000 and from $3,000 for a couple to $195,000. The state plans to end the limit entirely as soon [...]
An effort to repeal Washington State’s public long-term care insurance program failed to get enough signatures by the end-of-year deadline to make it on the November ballot. At the same time, Democrats, who control the state legislature, have introduced multiple bills aimed at delaying or revising the program. The state was scheduled to start collecting a mandatory 0.58 percent payroll [...]
Facing a lawsuit and political opposition, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee has delayed until April a payroll tax aimed at funding the state’s first-in-the-nation public long-term care insurance program. Inslee said the delay will give the legislature time to address what he called “areas that need adjustment.” A state long-term care commission advising the legislature and governor will recommend a [...]
The Build Back Better social spending bill the House passed this morning includes a long list of important changes aimed at improving the quality of life of older adults. There is much left to be done, and even this bill may be pared back in the Senate. But following the pandemic catastrophe for older adults, it would be significant progress. [...]
Washington State’s first-in-the-nation public long-term care insurance program is headed to court. A group of employers and workers has sued the state with the goal of getting the law overturned. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of three employers and six workers, argues that the insurance program violates a long list of federal and state laws including the Employee Income Security [...]
Not since the 1960s have so many critical policy issues that affect older adults come together in Congress at one time. Over the next few months, lawmakers will decide whether to both increase and fundamentally refocus federal support for older adults and younger people with disabilities. Those reforms would assist those who need long-term services and supports and many healthy [...]
Rep Tom Suozzi (D-NY) has introduced a bill to create a public, catastrophic, long-term care insurance program. The monthly cash benefit, initially about $3,600 and indexed for inflation, would be funded with a modest increase in the payroll tax of 0.3 percent for workers and 0.3 percent for employers, or roughly $300-a-year for a median wage worker. For many older [...]
Last week, President Biden agreed to drop his proposed $400 billion increase in the federal share of Medicaid’s home-based long-term care services. He made the concession to reach a deal with a bipartisan group of 21 senators on a much broader physical infrastructure bill. But the flaws in the current system of supports and services for older adults and young [...]