A great misconception of aging in America is the belief that Medicare will pay for your health care needs in old age. It won’t. It will pay for some of those medical costs. But a typical senior can expect to foot the bill for a substantial portion of their health care, even if they are enrolled in Medicare. Half of [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Medicare Advantage managed care plans, which in 2021 covered 26 million enrollees, will get an average 8.5 percent increase in total Medicare payments next year. At the same time, MA plans are rapidly embracing a wide range of social services and supports for older adults living at home. Sometimes called long-term care lite, these benefits range from meal and food [...]
It has become increasingly popular to promote home as a setting for both sophisticated medical treatment and long-term care, and often for good reason. But supporters of this trend need to recognize and reduce the burden it places on families who must take on ever-challenging clinical and organizational roles to make home care work. Hospital at Home; SNF (Skilled Nursing [...]
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 [...]