senior housing

Driving Senior Services Over the Fiscal Cliff

With the election behind him, Barack Obama's first item of business will be dealing with the fiscal cliff--that toxic combination of tax increases and automatic spending cuts that are due to kick in on Jan 2, unless Congress acts to delay or replace them with a long-term deficit reduction plan.  Going over the cliff would mean deep cuts in a wide range of government programs. [...]

Paul Ryan Would Slash Federal Senior Services

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's vice-presidential pick, would fundamentally remake federal health and long-term care services for the frail elderly and adults with disabilities. He'd completely restructure Medicare, slash funding for Medicaid, and likely abolish most of the other safety net programs that this vulnerable population has come rely on over the last half-century. It is fair to say that no major party candidate for [...]

Not Your Grandmother’s Assisted Living Facility

Assisted living and other residential care facilities are looking more and more like nursing homes. About one in four provide skilled nursing services, between half and two-thirds offer case management, and-- at least among larger facilities---two-thirds offer their residents physical or occupational therapy. More than one-third of residents will make an emergency visit to the hospital and more than one [...]

By |2012-03-07T15:15:06-05:00March 7th, 2012|Aging, Senior housing|1 Comment

What Obama’s Budget Would Mean for Seniors’ Health Care

In his 2013 budget released today, President Obama has proposed cutting $250 billion out of Medicare and $65 billion out of Medicaid over the next 10 years. Nursing homes,hospitals, and other providers would be paid less, while some Medicare beneficiares would have to pay more out of pocket. At the same time, federal spending for other critical senior services programs would be frozen--in many [...]

Looking at Long-Term Care as the Government’s Role Shrinks

On Tuesday, Nov 8, I'll be moderating an important discussion on the future long-term care in an era of shrinking government. My fellow panelists will be Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research for LeadingAge, a trade group that represents non-profit providers ; Len Fishman, the CEO of Hebrew Senior Life, an innovative senior services provider in Boston, [...]

Dealing with the Loneliness of Aging

My dad, who had congestive heart failure, lived on the second floor of a garden apartment building that had no elevator. As the disease made him weaker, he could no long walk down the stairs. And for the last year of his life, he was trapped in his own apartment. An "outing" was a slow walk, and eventually, a wheelchair ride about 100 feet to the [...]

By |2011-09-07T14:56:23-04:00September 7th, 2011|Aging, aging in place, Senior housing, transportation|11 Comments

Tough Times for Federal Assistance for Seniors

President Obama's 2012 budget is the latest indication of the growing pressures government-provided aging services will face in coming years.  And as tight as his budget is, spending on assistance for poor and frail seniors is likely to end up much lower than Obama proposed. With congressional Republicans vowing to cut $100 billion from domestic spending over the remaining seven [...]

By |2011-02-16T10:15:01-05:00February 16th, 2011|Aging, Federal senior services programs|2 Comments

A Great Old Housing Alternative for Seniors

Among the great challenges we all face as we age is where to live. We may be a bit too frail to stay in our suburban colonial, but are not nearly ready for assisted living, to say nothing of a nursing home. We could move to a traditional large retirement community such as a Leisure World, but that would mean moving to a [...]

By |2010-09-15T13:00:51-04:00September 15th, 2010|Senior housing|4 Comments

Senate Panel Examines Continuing Care Retirement Communities

The Senate Aging Committee held an important hearing today on Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) where the panel's chairman, Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), urged that both state regulators and the CCRCs themselves provide more information about their financial risks to residents, as well as other consumer protections. This is what Kohl said: The fact is that while CCRCs are a good residential option [...]

By |2010-07-21T19:55:02-04:00July 21st, 2010|Senior housing|0 Comments

An Interesting New Home Care Option

Receiving personal care at home, as opposed to in a nursing facility or other institution, is not possible without two things: Somebody to provide the assistance and an appropriate place to live. A southern Virginia minister has come up with a possible solution to the second. MEDCottage is a portable, modular self-contained 24x12 dwelling that could be attached to the home [...]