“Long-Term Care Policy after Covid-19 — Solving the Nursing Home Crisis,” by Rachel M. Werner, M.D., Ph.D., Allison K. Hoffman, J.D., and Norma B. Coe, Ph.D., New England Journal of Medicine

 

Quote:

But this crisis in nursing homes is not a new problem. Long-term care in the United States has been marginalized for decades, leaving aging adults who can no longer care for themselves at home reliant on poorly funded and insufficiently monitored institutions. Although major regulatory policies, including the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, have attempted to address deficiencies in the quality of care, Covid-19 has highlighted the fact that better monitoring is not enough. The coronavirus has exposed and amplified a long-standing and larger problem: our failure to value and invest in a safe and effective long-term care system. … More funding alone is not the answer. Nor is more regulation a sufficient response. Rather, we need a combination of funding, regulation, and a new strategy that fully supports a range of institutional and noninstitutional care. We are in a moment of crisis for nursing homes. Now should be a time of reckoning with the fundamental flaws in the organization of long-term care in this country. There are no easy fixes, but we must do better.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):
This article makes a good start but has no follow-through. The authors completely miss the pivotal point: Medicaid traps people in nursing homes and discourages early and responsible planning for long-term care. Nothing government does will help until that fundamental problem is corrected. For a better analysis and a workable solution, see Medicaid and Long-Term Care.