As Americans live longer, more and more families are caring for older adults and facing tough financial circumstances that give rise to a bigger question: How will we as a nation care for a growing number of older people with complex needs once they can no longer take care of themselves? So far, there’s no good answer.
As often happens with social policy, there is innovation emerging from the states to address the challenge – most significantly from the other Washington. Last month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a first-in-the-nation bill to help finance the long-term care needs of all the state’s residents. Washington state appears to be the first to find a way to make the math and the politics work, and its solution may provide a template for other states, and possibly the federal government, to follow.
As we’ve seen in the years since Obamacare went into effect, mandatory insurance is actuarially desirable and politically torturous. On the other hand, voluntary insurance while more politically palatable, is sustainable only with big public subsidies. The CLASS Act was neither mandatory nor subsidized, so its fiscal future was doomed; Obama administration officials pulled the plug only a year after its passage.
There are certainly reasons to fault the bill. Some might object to the premise of socializing the financing of long-term care. Others may take the opposite tack and claim the benefits are too skimpy, or note the risk of uneven administration. The bill’s original Republican sponsors withdrew their support from final bill, citing concerns about “costs to taxpayers.”
In contrast, Maine has one of the oldest populations in the country and a values system built on independence. A ballot referendum largely supported with out-of-state funds and organizing that would have raised taxes on higher-income households to finance the long-term care workforce went down to defeat last November.
As a senior care worker I can say that even now, the need outweighs available staffing
Contradictions - only in usury marasmus. In the new eco-social, goal-setting, humane, SUPER-EFFECTIVE and HARMONIOUS paradigm, questions of ethics are naturally prioritized, and the overcome Old Testament Trojans allow the economic component of the issue to “not be noticed”.
I agree there needs to be changes for elder care but a lifetime maximum of $36,500 is a very small amount for the kind of care required. Nursing homes are outrageously expensive and only covered for limited amounts/time then patient pays a lot. Dilemmas...
This is truly going to be the 1 issue for a long time to come. Nursing homes are unaffordable, family may or may not help, govt care is useless (if VA is anything to go by),euthanasia is illegal, and obtaining cyanide capsules for suicide is impossible. No hope or solution
Immigrants
My brother's plan of to let me care for our mom. So far it's working out very well. She's 95, sees a lot of docs, but she's still going to protests and defending Democracy. We are StrongerTogether
Put them in cages with no soap or toothpaste.
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