When we think about family caregivers, we usually picture spouses or 50-something adult children. But, it turns out, about one-third of Americans have helped care for an older loved one by age 40. In some respects, those millennials resemble older caregivers: They are as likely to underestimate the need for long-term supports and services in old age and they misunderstand [...]
While many Americans spend their through assets in old age, a surprising number have more savings two decades after retiring than they do when they leave their jobs. The phenomenon is yet another chapter in the story of old age in the US-- which might be titled A Tale Of Two Retirements. A new study by Sudipto Benerjee of the [...]
The huge two-year budget agreement reached by Congress early this morning will, for the first time, allow Medicare to pay for some long-term supports and services. Medicare managed care plans, called Medicare Advantage (MA), can now include non-medical services, such as home-delivered meals or rides to a doctor, in their benefit packages. The bill includes other changes to Medicare, including [...]
Here’s a word association game: I say, “long-term care” and you will probably respond, “nursing home.” But the truth is that there are nearly twice as many assisted living (ALF) and other residential care facilities (more than 30,000 in 2014) in the US than nursing homes (about 15,000). And there are more than 800,000 people living in residential care facilities, [...]
Two years ago, the Long-Term Care Financing Collaborative proposed a public catastrophic long-term care insurance program. In effect, people would use private insurance, savings, or home equity to pay for the first few years of their care needs, then the government would pick up costs for people with true catastrophic needs. Today, two highly-respected long-term care experts offered an important [...]
As board chair of a community hospital, I am often confronted with the dozens of quality and safety measures that state and federal regulators use to score and pay us, and private organizations use to rate us. And as someone who works to improve the quality of care for older adults, I am struck by how much all these measures [...]
Want to know if an older adult is likely to use lots of medical care? Just ask if she needs help with living activities such as bathing, dressing, or getting out of bed. In a new study with important implications for both caregivers and policymakers, researchers at the Long-Term Quality Alliance (LTQA) found that Medicare spends an average of three [...]
Last week, the Senate quietly and unanimously passed a bill that would improve some Medicare benefits for people with chronic disease. The measure would do many good things but the most important is this: It would take important steps toward breaking down the wall between medical treatment and non-medical supports and services in Medicare, beginning a process that would make [...]
Only about 89,000 people bought private long-term care insurance in 2016, a nearly 14 percent decline from 2015, according to an industry survey. Nearly all were bought in the individual market, though about 15,000 people purchased coverage through their jobs. The sales decline continues a stunning trend. At the market’s peak in 2002, consumers bought 750,000 traditional policies, eight times [...]
Congress took two big steps this week that could have a major impact on seniors and younger people with disabilities. The one that got the most attention, of course, was the Senate’s failure to pass a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. The second, which was barely noticed, was a series of key decisions by House Republicans on how much [...]