long-term care

What The End Of The Covid-19 Public Health Emergency Will Mean for Older Adults

President Biden’s announcement that the Covid-19 public health emergency (PHE) will end on May 11 will have a significant impact on older adults. Some changes will be immediate, others won’t occur for nearly two years. Some may improve care for older adults, others could cost seniors more money and end some important benefits they received during the pandemic. Biden’s decision [...]

By |2023-02-01T13:20:13-05:00February 1st, 2023|Health Care|0 Comments

Look To The States, Not Congress, For Long-Term Care Financing Reform

While there is no chance the federal government will enact long-term care financing reform any time soon, several states are busy developing public insurance programs of their own. These initiatives could be a critical step as the nation wrestles with how to pay for personal care for older adults and others with disabilities or chronic disease. Washington State is refining [...]

By |2023-01-23T14:48:28-05:00January 23rd, 2023|long-term care financing|1 Comment

What You Should Know About The Anti-Alzheimer’s Drug Lecanemab

What should people living with dementia and their families take away from the recent data published on lecanemab, the Alzheimer’s drug developed by Biogen and the Japanese firm Eisai? The drugmakers’ announcement of their Phase 3 trial results got lots of attention in the popular press. Some stories heralded the drug as a “breakthough.” But even experts disagree about the [...]

By |2022-12-08T11:13:27-05:00December 8th, 2022|dementia|0 Comments

Retirement Savings Bills Would Boost Deferred Annuities

When Congress returns for a short post-election session, one item on its to-do list is major retirement savings legislation that has broad bipartisan support. One feature of both House and Senate bills: Expanding a deferred annuity called a Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract (QLAC). Both bills would increase the allowable size of QLACs. That might make them more attractive to some [...]

By |2022-10-19T12:08:44-04:00October 19th, 2022|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Medicaid Long-Term Care’s Real Problem Is Insufficient Resources, Not Abuse By Wealthy Seniors

Critics of Medicaid’s long-term services and supports (LTSS) program often complain that it is so poorly designed that lavishes benefits on wealthy retirees and wastes billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Some people do abuse the system. And they should be stopped. But the real problem with Medicaid LTSS is that in many states its benefits are so paltry that [...]

By |2022-10-06T09:42:28-04:00October 4th, 2022|Medicaid|0 Comments

Congress’ Epic Fail In Caring For Frail Older Adults

One would have thought that after more than 750,000 Covid-19 related deaths among older adults in the US and more than 200,000 deaths among residents and staffs of long-term care facilities that Congress would act to improve the nation’s long-term care system. One would have been wrong. Except for including about $12 billion in federal funds to temporarily expand Medicaid’s [...]

By |2022-07-18T15:46:45-04:00July 18th, 2022|long term care reform|0 Comments

A Two-Year Reprieve For Medicare Insolvency Sounds Like Good News. But It Isn’t

The Medicare trustees’ new estimate that the program’s Part A Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust fund will remain solvent for an extra two years—to 2028—sounds like good news. But dig deeper into the 257-page report and the news is grim for the future of Medicare and its 64 million beneficiaries. Headlines from the trustees’ annual report always focus on the depletion [...]

By |2022-06-08T10:22:22-04:00June 8th, 2022|Medicare|0 Comments

A Blue-Ribbon Panel Calls Nursing Home Care “Ineffective, Inefficient, Fragmented, And Unsustainable”

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, [...]

By |2022-04-06T17:10:28-04:00April 6th, 2022|nursing homes|0 Comments