The Smoke and Mirrors of Wellness Care Reform for the Elderly
I am deeply concerned that the American public, especially our nation’s elders, will be relying on our government to give lengthy term care solutions they’ll by no means see. They will only see the “smoke and mirrors” of Wellness Care Reform.
Our nation’s seniors are the most vulnerable segment of the U.S. population vulnerable each wellness wise and financially. They’re silently discovering the savings they believed would be adequate is not enough. They’re silently fearful of operating out of funds with no a single to care for them as they turn out to be a lot more frail. The silence is about to turn into deafening.
Regrettably, when Wellness Care Reform proudly announced New Lengthy Term Care Services, it discouraged a lot of American’s from purchasing Extended Term Care Insurance.
The New York Instances reported on ‘Options Expand for Economical Extended-Term Care’ THE NEW OLD AGE. The Related Press announced ‘New Overall health Care Law Has Advantages for Seniors’. Point being, the casual reader was relieved to hear their government will “take care of them” when they require lengthy term care solutions. We now know that is not about to happen.
Luckily our representatives in Washington discovered that Wellness Care Reforms answer to the trouble of Lengthy Term Care, “CLASS”, (Neighborhood Living Help Services and Supports Act) legislation would have been fiscally unsound. $70 billion in premiums that was anticipated to be raised for the new “long term care” program would have been counted as “deficit reduction”. The lengthy term care rewards it was intended to finance have been assumed not to materialize in the 1st 10 years. Even so, that dollars was not accounted for anywhere in the legislation.
The new legislation proposed to “trim” $463 billion from Medicare. However Medicare is at the moment having trouble balancing its books currently. However, why does the wellness care bill inform us Medicare can operate much more cheaply going forward without having the accompanying reforms?
Our national media gave massive fanfare to the CLASS ACT when it passed. Sadly the media has offered the CLASS ACT’s demise tiny focus. Now what?
Projections show that the federal deficit is anticipated to exceed $700 billion annually over the subsequent decade. This primarily will double the national and $900 billion represents interest on previous debt. Would the CFO of any key corporation in the United States permit the firm he worked for to finish up in this sort of monetary position? Certainly not.
Our officials in Congress have been elected to protect the best interests of the American people today. “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”, and once again printing much more currency, has become our government’s mantra for the future. However the magnitude of the mismanagement of America’s purse strings has now reached an unconscionable state.
The United States of America can not continue to mismanage its monetary future. Future Congresses will have to provide a multitude of future reforms and, regrettably, history tells us THAT will under no circumstances occur. Proposals for financing well being reform have been primarily based on extra “smoke and mirrors”. The “Cadillac” tax is scheduled to commence in 2018.
The overall health care legislation that has been forced on every single and every single 1 of us is known to be fiscally unsound. Exactly where do we go from here? It is also quick to point the finger at the President and his administration. However Congress owns the responsibility of passing Health Care Legislation. And THAT is the problem.
The 535 voting members of Congress shared the responsibility equally. If a single clear thinking, intelligent, honorable Congressman had the whole duty for Overall health Care Reform, he or she would not have forced a fiscally unsound Wellness Care Reform Bill down our throats.
Now let’s once more evaluate how Well being Care Reform will work against our senior citizens.
A most current government report identified that in 2000 there have been 1.8 million available nursing residence beds. As portable steps for elderly came to a close, there have been 1.7 million nursing household beds a net five percent reduction in offered beds. And, there are no new nursing residences becoming constructed.
Right now there’s significantly less than 1.5 million Americans confined to nursing houses. Reportedly 10 % of these nursing houses are operating below bankruptcy protection. It really is nicely known that most of these facilities are understaffed and a lot of never have competent assist.
Subsequent, let’s take into consideration that the Alzheimer’s Association tells us the likelihood of creating Alzheimer’s after age 85 is 50 %. By 2030, they inform us that the number of folks age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s illness is estimated to reach 7.7 million, a 50 percent raise from the 5.2 million age 65 and older currently affected.
The logical query I should ask is “if we can’t take adequate care of 1.5 million folks now, how can we possibly take care of 7.7 million folks in 2030?” We can not. Additional basically place, when you or your spouse or your parent has Alzheimer’s, there is no location for them to go. Not to be cruel, but if you ever feel for a moment about taking in an aged parent with Alzheimer’s into your property, please believe once again. Ask any caregiver who’s been via it. It’s Guaranteed to destroy any families’ peace of thoughts and harmony.
Why aren’t our political leaders actively functioning on options? Where’s the outcry? Regrettably our political leaders only align themselves with solvable complications.
America’s seniors became additional hopeful reading that Wellness Reform will assistance them with added Lengthy Term Care solutions. And we now know THAT is not going to take place. There are no plans in location to assist our nation’s seniors assume they’ll acquire the comfort and dignity of adequate long term care solutions. What’s worse is the silence shared by all our political leaders. The silence is now deafening.