Finally, long-term home health care

[kpete]

Source: Boston Globe

Finally, long-term home health care
By Loretta McLaughlin
July 19, 2009

WITH LITTLE FANFARE, a new public program to help pay for long-term care for adults is moving through Congress. The premium is low and the coverage is good.

Largely geared to personal and health services provided in the home, though it extends to nursing home care as a last resort, the new coverage is built into the emerging formula for national healthcare reform.

The need for home care is immense. More than 10 million Americans receive home care, and the number will rise rapidly as the population ages. Estimates hold that 75 percent of us will need home care at some point during our lifetime.

This kind of medical/social service is of inestimable benefit to the chronically ill, the elderly, the mentally disabled, and to adults recuperating from a temporary illness. Home-based personal assistance would allow many of them to return to work. And it would be a godsend for the 90 percent of Americans who have had no meaningful protection against this medical expense.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/07/19/finally_long_term_home_health_care/

[MADem]

1. A big fat REC! nt

[alfredo]

2. Terrific

[spartan61]

3. Oh, WOW!!! The insurance companies aren't going to like this.

My husband and I bought LTHC a few years ago after watching his mother in a nursing home for five years that took every dime she had (she was allowed to keep $2,000.) We bought it while we were still young enough to get cheaper premiums. You can bet that if this goes through in Congress, we, along with thousands, maybe millions, of Americans will cancel their LTHC and go with the gov't plan. As I said, the insurance companies aren't going to like this.

[bloomington-lib]

5. The skeptic in me says they have their hands in this just as they

influence every health care bill. They're probably profiting off this somehow. Maybe their profits go up getting these people off the books.

That being said, I'm still happy for the bill.

[elehhhhna]

6. sure they'll like it -- they get to keep your premiums

long term not so good for 'em but they don't CARE about the long term. It's a win-win.

[mopinko]

18. i couldn't afford it. i have the old fashioned long term care insurance-

5 kids, 3 of them daughters.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. EVERY SINGLE FAMILY faces these issues at one point or another. nt.

[aquart]

7. Good, because my disabled sister has been refused for longterm care insurance.

She's too sick.

[Traveling_Home]

8. Help Needed NOW!!!!

Obama continues Institutional bias against freedom and dignity

For Immediate release:
July 7, 2009

For Information contact:
Bob Kafka 512-431-4085
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504

Obama Administration Continues Institutional Bias in Healthcare Reform

Washington, D.C.--- The nation's largest grassroots disability rights
organization, ADAPT, expressed outrage today at the Obama administration's
selective endorsement of one piece of proposed long term care legislation
while refusing to support a companion measure aimed at eliminating the
institutional bias in Medicaid for aging or disabled lower income people
that Obama, with strong support from over 80 national disability and aging
organizations, co-sponsored as a Senator.

July 6, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, sent a
letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy, Chair of the Senate Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions Committee, expressing President Obama's support for
Kennedy's "CLASS Act," which would allow middle class Americans to set
aside money from their paychecks in anticipation of the expenses they will
likely face for long-term services and supports as they age, or acquire a
disability. After paying into the fund for at least 5 years, workers or
their non-working spouses could draw on the fund for long-term services
and assistance, either in a nursing home or in the community. Workers who
wish could opt out of the program, an outcome more likely in tough
economic times or in cases where low worker-wages barely cover individual
or family survival expenses.

"Those of us with disabilities, who are aging, and who aren't able to
work are outraged that the President has issued public support for this
primarily middle class legislation, and has completely ignored the
companion legislation that would include lower income disabled and older
people in reform of long term services and supports, and health care
reform," said Bob Kafka, Texas ADAPT Organizer. "It's like we don't
exist!"

ADAPT and a multitude of other national disability and aging organizations
in Washington have gone on record in support of Sen. Kennedy's CLASS Act
only if it is paired with a "fix" for Medicaid addressing lower income
and non-working people, similar to provisions contained in the Community
Choice Act (CCA). CCA inserts the concept of "personal choice" into the
law, adding language that mandates states to pay for help in a personbs
own home the same way the law mandates them to pay for nursing homes.
Current law can force people with disabilities and who are aging into
nursing homes in order to receive services that can just as easily be
delivered in the community. Research has demonstrated that community-based
assistance is almost always less expensive.

"When President Obama was a senator, he co-sponsored CCA," said Dawn
Russell, ADAPT Organizer from Denver Colorado, "and when he campaigned
for the Presidency, he pledged to support CCA. But since he was elected,
and we met with his people at the White House, they told us that he will
not include long term services and supports in health care reform. When we
heard that, we expressed our disappointment and anger in a peaceful
protest outside the White House. The President responded by having us
arrested, and there were very heavy fines levied against us. It feels like
the President is trying to intimidate and silence us so we won't speak up
for people with disabilities, people with low incomes, and those who are
aging who are at risk of being forced into nursing homes under the current
law."

Because the CLASS Act does not address the Medicaid "institutional
bias," people who use up the benefits they save under the act will still
face having to move to nursing homes to keep getting assistance, unless
they can afford to stay in their own homes because of other resources they
have.

"When I voted last November, I was sure I was voting for a great man who
would bring freedom to people with disabilities," said Bruce Darling,
ADAPT Organizer from New York. "Just as President Lincoln freed the
slaves, I felt that President Obama would free those of us with
disabilities from the continued threat of incarceration in a nursing homes
and institutions. Now, I feel like a fool, because this administration
apparently cares nothing for us and has no respect for our freedom and our

[Iowa]

9. Interesting... and thanks for posting that.

This isn't really surprising though, is it? See... if we were able to hire an LPN, or an aide, or a family member in our neighborhood to come in and provide a few services so we could stay in your homes, there's really nothing in that for the nursing home industry. So it's off to the corporate "nursing-home" warehouses we go.

With Obama it's really never about compassion, humanity, what's smart, or what's best for average people and the country as a whole - the guy simply has no sense of courage, honesty, or honor. He's all about toadying up to big money and being a lapdog for the plutocracy.

[CountAllVotes]

12. you've hit the nail on the head

and yes, there are many out there that need in-home health care now. I happen to be one of them as my husband is about blind now and I'm trying to deal with it having a very serious health problem/disability myself.

These people care about nothing but themselves and continuing to line the coffers of their constituents.

God knows how angry I am after having paid into all of this sh*t all of my life. Now the need is there and there is no help unless you are dead broke.

They'll get every last cent I am convinced.

When is a good time to relocate to another country (which is possible in my situation) I often wonder. :think:

:kick:

[nightrain]

10. sounds good. I'd like to read the details before congratulating ourselves....

[DesertFlower]

11. my mom spent a few months in a

small dementia care group home. the cost for a private room was $3,000 a month. she passed after 3 months, but her savings would have been gone in a year or less and then the state would have picked up the expense. she would have had to give up her private room and they would have paid around $2,000 a month for a semi private room.

my point is: the state would have picked up the expense. so are we not as taxpayers paying for it anyway?

BTW. it was a bargain. i've been told that the minimum cost for a nursing home is $4,500 a month for a semi private room and the care is not as good as these small group homes.

[Q3JR4]

13. I currently work full time

with an elderly Alzheimer's patient. Her son hired me (and one other person part time) to take care of his mother's needs (feeding, dressing, cleaning, medicating, etc) during the day.

Of course she has her husband's federal pension and insurance to fall back on. You know the one I mean...it's the same that every member of congress gets for working 8 years. Also, her children would rather give me money than have her go into a home somewhere.

It may happen eventually, but they're giving her a little more time at the home she shared with her husband for 13 years before he passed.

Q3JR4.

Don't know how this relates to the issue at hand and wouldn't have a problem with everyone ignoring this post.

[midnight]

14. This is good news. Who feels like traveling when your

chronically ill. Doctors made house calls before insurance co. started saying what was billable and or "medically neccessary".

[Wednesdays]

15. K&R

:kick:

[ChickMagic]

16. That is awesome.

Every year I apply for and am turned down for long term
health care. I've had too many illnesses.

[xchrom]

17. look at the # of replies of people on this board alone

who need help.

i had to quit work -- for YEARS -- to help my dad pass on.

it was GRUELING work , often grotesque -- but it had to be done -- and if he had gone into a home -- would have taken everything he and my mom had.