“Workforce improvement No. 1 target in final OIG report on nursing home pandemic effects,” by Josh Henreckson, McKnights LTC News “Steep challenges faced by nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to hinder their ability to provide quality care and adequate staffing, according to new report findings from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General released Thursday. … The contents of the report will not surprise long-term care providers, who have broadly struggled with a shrinking workforce and rising costs across the country. … Still, Jopp remained cautiously optimistic that a combination of additional oversight and adequate incentives
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“Fact Check: Will making WA Cares optional force seniors into poverty?,” by Elizabeth Hovde, Washington Policy Center “If voters approve an initiative allowing participation in the state’s WA Cares program to be optional, would it ‘continue to force’ seniors to spend themselves into poverty? The short and not-simple answer is: No. … It is not a secret that people use Medicaid to pay for LTC needs, allowing them to keep their savings and investments for heirs and use taxpayer financing for long-term care. Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform, writes in a recent article that Americans spent $530 billion
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“Spending on nursing home, home healthcare growing fast,” by Kathleen Steele Gaivin, McKnights Senior Living “Nursing home care and home healthcare were two of the fastest-growing categories of healthcare spending in 2023, according to Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators brief, released Tuesday. Initial data show that national health spending overall grew by 6.2% for the year, whereas the gross domestic product grew by 6.3%. Personal healthcare spending grew by 7.7%. … Spending on home healthcare increased 10.7% in 2023, and spending on nursing home care increased by 9.8%, according to the report.” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for
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“New Eligibility Rules Are a Financial Salve for Nearly 2 Million on Medi-Cal,” by Bernard J. Wolfson, KFF Health News “Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who are aged, blind, disabled, in long-term care, or in the federal Supplemental Security Income program, faced limits on the value of financial accounts and personal property they could hold to qualify for coverage. Now, nearly 2 million of them will no longer face these restrictions, putting them on par with the roughly 12 million other Medi-Cal beneficiaries who don’t have asset limits. Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who
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“Medicare home care eligibility standards unfairly burden family caregivers, think tank argues,” by Adam Healy, McKnights Home Care “Researchers called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to act now to integrate more kinds of home care benefits for Medicare beneficiaries to help patients and their caregivers grappling with strict eligibility criteria and inadequate support systems. … Medicare’s criteria for a beneficiary to be eligible for home care is too high, they argued, and unpaid family caregivers bear the greatest responsibilities caring for those that do not make the cut. Oftentimes these caregivers are forced to ‘spend down’ to
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“About 30 percent of older adults who need care are caring for another,” by Kristen Fischer, McKnights LTC News “More than 30% of older adults who are caregivers are also receiving care to assist with completing their own daily activities. The older adult caregivers are also more likely to care for a spouse, be older than their spouse, have limited financial assets and be in worse physical health, according to a new study. The report was published Monday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: This whole caregiving challenge just keeps getting scarier
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“Great Recession Saved Lives: Research,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “The Great Recession showed that, at least in the short run, a severe economic crisis may help people live longer, according to a team of economists led by Amy Finkelstein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team found that the 2007-2009 slump improved the age-adjusted mortality rate in a community by 2.3%, or by 0.5% for every 1-percentage-point increase in the community’s unemployment rate, and that the improvement lasted for at least 10 years. ‘These estimates imply that the Great Recession provided one in 25 55-year-olds with an extra year
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“Halfway Through ‘Unwinding,’ Medicaid Enrollment Is Down About 10 Million,” by Phil Galewitz, KFF Health News “We’re halfway through the Medicaid “unwinding,” in which states are dropping people from the government health insurance program for the first time since the pandemic began. Millions of people have been dumped from the rolls since April, often for procedural issues like failing to respond to notices or return paperwork. But at the same time, millions have been re-enrolled or signed up for the first time. The net result: Enrollment has fallen by about 9.5 million people from the record high reached last April, according to
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“Income and Assets of Medicare Beneficiaries in 2023,” by Alex Cottrill, Juliette Cubanski, Tricia Neuman, and Karen Smith, KFF “A new KFF analysis shows that most Medicare beneficiaries live on relatively low incomes and have modest financial resources for retirement – posing a risk to their economic well-being, particularly if they were to have a major, unanticipated expense, such as a need for long-term nursing home care. The financial picture is especially bleak among Black and Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries, who tend to have lower incomes, savings, and home equity than White beneficiaries, the analysis shows. Women have lower incomes and
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“Initiative 2124 asks voters to make WA Cares an opt-in, rather than mandatory, program,” by Elizabeth Hovde, Washington Policy Center “The controversy over WA Cares prompted many people to start thinking about long-term care. State lawmakers can engage in conversation about long-term-care planning without imposing a mandatory savings plan on workers for one life need. Lawmakers also should enact reforms that will create a healthy, price-competitive insurance market that benefits everyone. Ending taxes on insurance products is one specific thing lawmakers can do, making it more affordable to purchase private long-term-care insurance. Most of all, lawmakers should seek to limit
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