“Americans Will Struggle to Grow Old at Home,” by E. Tammy Kim, Bloomberg Businessweek

Eighty million people in the U.S. will be 65 or older within a few decades, compared with around 50 million today, and, according to surveys conducted by AARP Inc., the desire to grow old at home is almost universal. Most who do so will need help with daily tasks and will exhaust the ability of family and friends to cook and clean, bathe and dress, and run errands. When Americans look for paid help, they’ll find their national infrastructure convoluted and wanting. It’s a problem the world over, but one compounded in the U.S. by the fragility of the welfare state. … In states with strict limits, many patients who would prefer to stay at home are placed instead in a nursing facility, at significant cost to the public—in 2015, about $55 billion. In states that do approve substantial home-based care, Medicaid budgets are underfunded to the point of crisis. … New York, one of the nation’s largest long-term-care markets and the only state whose Medicaid program covers around-the-clock help, comes closest to the future Americans say they want. But New York also demonstrates the system’s central problem: It’s untenable, given current funding levels, to pay workers for anywhere close to the number of hours they actually work.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

What a mess government has made of the LTC services and financing markets.

Americans Will Struggle to Grow Old at Home

#old
#Americans
#goldencareagent