“Elderly should consider residential care before health crisis hits: study,” by Alicia Lasek, McKnight’s LTC News “Considering a move to a long-term care or senior living community can help elderly adults ensure that their needs are met when a health crisis hits, say gerontologists from the University of East Anglia, Britain. … In most cases, the elders were found to have had little input in the process. In addition, their family members and caregivers reported being traumatized by the events leading up to the move. In the end, some elders said that they were not happy with the decisions made
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“SCAN Survey Reveals Majority of Seniors Are Not Adequately Prepared to Age in Place,” SCAN Health Plan “SCAN Health Plan®, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit Medicare Advantage health plans, today announced results from its national survey on aging in place. Responses from 1,000 U.S. adults ages 65 and older indicate that 62% believe most seniors they know are unlikely to be able to safely age in place. … Seeing their peers unable to live life on their own terms, seniors are rethinking their own readiness to age in place. In assessing people they know, 67% of seniors cite changes to physical
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“How to Fix the Global Retirement Crisis,” by Reshma Kapadia, Barron’s “The idea of moving into a nursing home is abhorrent to most Americans, but many older Swedes have to lobby to get into one. Aging parents in the U.S. may remind their adult children to visit them, but China requires it by law. Visit playgrounds in Japan and you’ll find elder-friendly fitness equipment instead of monkey bars and slides. We are at the beginning of a global aging boom—and countries all over the world are facing the same challenges. Some are coming up with creative ways to address the
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“10 Things to Know about Medicaid Managed Care,” by Elizabeth Hinton, Robin Rudowitz, Maria Diaz, and Natalie Singer, Kaiser Family Foundation” “Medicaid is the nation’s largest public health coverage program, though many Medicaid beneficiaries now receive their care through privately-held managed care companies. This brief describes key themes related to the use of comprehensive, risk-based managed care in the Medicaid program and highlights data and trends related to MCO enrollment, service carve-ins, spending, MCO parent firms, and state and plan activity related to quality, value-based payments, and the social determinants of health.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center
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“Retirement Trends Of Baby Boomers,” by David Haass, Forbes “By prioritizing your financial goals, you set a plan for success. It’s best to save for retirement funds, get out of debt and pay for long-term care insurance before you start contributing to a college fund for grandchildren.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Hear, hear! Take care of yourself first so they don’t have to take care of you later.
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“New Bombshell Report Reveals Obamacare’s Epic Medicaid Waste,” by Sally Pipes, Forbes “Medicaid was created in 1965 to provide health coverage to impoverished Americans. But according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, it’s the insurer of record for a significant number of middle-class Americans. The cost to taxpayers? Hundreds of millions of dollars. … Medicaid has expanded well beyond its original mission of taking care of the most vulnerable members of society. Hundreds of thousands of people who have no business claiming taxpayer-funded health coverage are doing just that.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President,
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“On the Job, 24 Hours a Day, 27 Days a Month,” by Andy Newman, New York Times “Home health care is the fastest growing major job category in the country, one of the most emotionally and personally demanding, and one of the worst paid. Elder-boomers living longer and seeking to “age in place” rather than in institutions have created a demographic explosion that even a 150 percent increase in home care workers in the last decade, to nearly 2.3 million, cannot keep pace with. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of ailing people entitled to Medicaid-funded home care are on waiting lists. But
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“Bipartisan effort probes federal oversight of Medicaid LTSS programs,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “Sept. 13 is the deadline Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) on Friday gave to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Administrator Seema Verma and the directors of the eight external quality review organizations that audit Medicaid managed care organizations to answer questions about access and quality of states’ long-term services and supports programs. … Increasingly, the senators noted, older adults are receiving LTSS from MCOs through home- and community-based services. The number of states implementing managed care for beneficiaries needing LTSS increased
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“The elderly aren’t so poor after all,” by Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post “It was probably inevitable that we would have a ‘retirement crisis’ as hordes of baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) sprint and stumble into their ‘golden years.’ But it’s a fake crisis, even though it’s already becoming a staple of journalism and politics. It presumes that most Americans can’t afford to retire comfortably. Not so.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Read this and wonder why we still provide Medicaid long-term care to people with big incomes and unlimited
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“Eldercare: How Does the United States Stack Up?,” by Elizabeth Bauer, Forbes “‘America and England are the only economically developed nations in the West that do not provide a universal long-term-care benefit, said Howard Gleckman’ … If this data were reliable, we’d be able to conclude that American out-of-pocket and private insurance spending for long-term care, at 0.4% of GDP, is a bit higher than the OECD average, at 0.3% … — but, again, the table is so full of caveats as to be of questionable utility, which may be the reason why it dates to 2008 and no more
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