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Long-Term Care Financing Reform: It’s All About Bi-Partisanship

Here’s something America needs much more of. A Democrat and a Republican coming together to work together on issues. In today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, Republican State Rep. Laura Brod and Democratic State Rep. Paul Thissen discuss aging services financing reform. The full text is below.Want to read more on this subject?: Download Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts' White Paper in our Successful Aging Library.

Long-Term Care Financing Reform: A Fiscal and Health Care Necessity

September 18, 2008

We loved the spirit and passion for change reflected in our parties' recent national conventions. But missing from each convention’s big stage was a discussion of one major challenge we face: How will individuals and government pay for the long-term services and care that millions of older Americans -- and younger people with physical challenges -- need now and will increasingly need in record numbers?Tens of thousands of Minnesotans and 10 million Americans, including 6 million over age 65, need long-term care. Despite families' considerable efforts to provide care themselves, and despite huge public expenditures, the system is still failing many families and individuals. Many people are still left to struggle with unmet needs and catastrophic costs.Medicaid -- Medical Assistance in Minnesota -- was originally designed to be a safety net for families. Unfortunately, Medicaid has become our largest payer of aging services and the sole long-term care insurance policy for most Americans. The system is not working.State government will be hard-pressed to sustain the rising costs of long-term care under the current system. Since 2000, Minnesota state government’s spending for long-term care has almost doubled to more than $1.3 billion, with $7 out of every $10 going to government-funded nursing homes. And that doesn’t cover actual costs of care. Further, due to its origins as a 'pay-as-you-go' entitlement program, Medicaid requires middle-class families to impoverish themselves in order to qualify for help. It makes no sense for that to be the default retirement and long-term care plan for the majority of our citizens.How do we move forward?As citizens, we need to adopt a different mind-set toward planning for our long-term care. We can’t continue shirking solutions by ceding to complexity. We must change. Minnesota is in a great position to collaboratively push ideas forward. After all, the best public policy is born by finding areas of common ground.
One point we believe Minnesotans can agree upon is that those who can afford to do so should start saving for their retirement and long-term care needs. The state can jump-start that process by offering incentives for saving. The Legislature’s 2020 Conference recently joined Ecumen, the Citizens League and Minnesota Chamber of Commerce to host Nebraska’s state treasurer, Shane Osborn. He described Nebraska’s new, one-of-a-kind long-term care savings plan. The model is similar to the college 529 savings plans with which many families are familiar. We think it is worth enacting a similar savings plan in Minnesota.Minnesota doesn’t have to create all ideas from scratch. And we don’t have to wait for Washington. In the upcoming session, we plan to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to adopt the Nebraska plan for Minnesota. It’s one of many communitywide, collaborative steps we see ahead to ensure that Minnesota not only rides the age wave but gets in front of it.Of course, there are many other ideas for transforming long-term care. We look forward to a robust discussion during the rest of this election season and into 2009. But we know we must act -- and act together -- to make our vision of a Minnesota where people can age with independence and dignity a reality.Tomorrow is knocking and will be here before we know it. We should answer.Laura Brod, R-New Prague, and Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, are members of the Minnesota House and of the 2020 Conference, a bipartisan group of nearly 60 legislators focused on addressing major demographic issues in Minnesota.

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Has Behavior Changed Toward You Since You’ve Gotten Older?

New York Times reporter John Leland would like your help for an upcoming article in The Times about the small daily insults that can come with getting older. Recently he got an this e-mail from a reader:

I am offended when first-named by children, strangers and receptionists (often in their teens); what they consider “friendly” I consider false intimacy. Strangers have begun to call me “dear” and “sweetie,” things they would never in a million years call a woman in her forties or fifties. The assaults are terrible and ongoing and people **mean well.** But they treat the elderly as if aging were a joke. I actually said to someone I may be old but I’m not stupid.

If you have a story you’d like to share, go here and click on the email post at the bottom of Jane Gross' New Old Age Blog.

Thanks.

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Health Care Homes: Transforming Chronic Care for Boomers and Beyond

You are invited to the discussion (title above) as part of the Minnesota Department of Human Services Transform 2010 Boomers Mean Business Forum. This session, which is filling fast, will be Friday, October 3 from 8:30 to noon at the Minnesota Department of Human Services Elmer L. Andersen building in Saint Paul. Pre-registration is required. Go to the link above for more information and to register.

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ALVA - Leadership Development for the Rest of Your Life

Ecumen is proud to support ALVA. It’s a Minnesota leadership development program by the Vital Aging Network for experienced adults who are interested in providing leadership for the common good. ALVA is focused on helping people discover their unique path to leadership and develop the skills you need to be successful. For more information and tuition costs, go here.

ALVA courses are being offered in three locations around Minnesota €” Century College in White Bear Lake, Inver Hills Community College in Inver Grove Heights, and Northwest Technical College in Bemidji€”starting October 10, 2008. Classes meet one Friday a month from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM and will be connected via interactive TV.

This life-changing course is designed for leadership in later life and empower people to find new ways to use their leadership skills.

  • Discover your lifework
  • Understand the opportunities and barriers of leadership in later life
  • Plan and implement a civic leadership project
  • Build an ongoing network for sharing ideas, knowledge, and resources

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Ecumen Talks Future of Aging on Almanac

On Friday night, Ecumen participated in a panel discussion with the Vital Aging Network and Minnesota’s first state demographer Hazel Reinhardt on the future of aging in Minnesota on Twin Cities Public Television’s popular public affairs show Almanac. The show aired on Friday. You can watch the 10-minute clip here by clicking on the Sept. 12th show and The Future of Aging link.

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Senate Candidate Al Franken Announces Long-Term Care Financing Initiatives

On Friday, Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken talked long-term care, announcing several proposals at Lyngblomsten senior community in Saint Paul. Here are ideas he raised:

  • Give families or caregivers a $2,000 tax credit to help pay for long-term care needs.
  • A $1,200 tax credit for businesses to offset costs of providing long-term care.
  • Make federal long-term care reimbursements more flexible so seniors' costs could be equally paid whether they live in senior housing, nursing home or their homes. The campaign estimates that would save $25 billion every year, in part because home care is less expensive than nursing home care.

(Smart move to focus on people’s desire to live at home and have choice and the ability for government to save money by doing it.)Q&A With CandidateWe’re seeking insignts from all of the major party U.S. Senate candidates on aging and long-term care. Al Franken responses to Changing Aging’s questions are here.

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Riding into the Weekend

Here’s a photo to put you in a frame of mind for the weekend. Earlier this year Ecumen customer Evelyn Bonnes of New Richmond, Wis., celebrated her 93rd birthday by going motorcycle riding in Mesa, Az. through the red rock foundations. Here’s to riding into the weekend and Living Fully After 90! Have a good one!P.S. I heard from a number of readers that the link to Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts' long-term care financing paper wasn’t working. Thanks for the heads up. And my apologies. It’s been fixed and you can download it and other articles here.

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New Long-Term Care Financing White Paper Provides Candidates Ingredients for Change

Long Term Care Financing Reform: An Incredible Opportunity for Candidates Who Desire Positive Change in America' is the latest white paper written by Ecumen’s CEO Kathryn Roberts, PhD. It’s a must-read for people and candidates for public office who desire innovation in Federal and State public policy.Want to learn more? Here are 10 Reasons Long-Term Care Financing Reform Must Occur.

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Long Term Care Financing Reform: An Incredible Opportunity for Candidates Who Desire Positive Change in America' is the latest white paper written by Ecumen’s CEO Kathryn Roberts, PhD. It’s a must-read for people and candidates for public office who desire innovation in Federal and State public policy.Want to learn more? Here are 10 Reasons Long-Term Care Financing Reform Must Occur.

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Senior man and woman having coffee at table seen through window

Alva Wellington: Life on a Day That Will Live in Infamy

One of the great joys of working in our profession is we get access to first-person accounts of our country’s and communities' history. I’d like to share with you a perspective written by Alva Wellington, an Ecumen customer who lives in St. Peter, Minnesota.Thanks, Alva, for your post at Changing Aging and taking us back to the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said 'will live in infamy.'

Sunday, December 7, 1941 was a beautiful day in San Pedro, California so we decided to go to Los Angeles to an organ concert. We were a new bride and groom and my husband was just beginning his job as a Lutheran pastor in San Pedro. The concert was inspiring but its beauty was suddenly shattered with the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We all left Los Angeles wonderingwhat was going to happen next. But it wasn’t long before we realized theseriousness of this news . When we came to the outskirts of San Pedro, the road was barricaded and all drivers stopped. No one was allowed into the city except those who lived there. We told the police that we lived there but they questioned us because we still had Minnesota license plates on thecar and no other identification. My husband said he had a church service here to conduct this evening. But this didn’t impress the police either. Then I found a letter from my mother with our address on it. This finally convinced the police that we really did live in San Pedro so he let us go by the barricade and to our home.It is rather interesting that the city could get prepared so quickly. But they were fearful that San Pedro might be on the list to be bombed also. So barricades, barrage balloons and blacked out windows were put into place . We lived with ration books, siren warnings, and trying to drive home at night without using any lights. That was hazardous. Many times we walkedhome in the dark and interestingly, as we walked, we could hear people talking on their porches but only in whispers.My husband’s regular church job changed from the traditional. He was busy saying good bye to men who immediately signed up for the armed services or comforting families when blue stars in the windows were changed to gold when someone was killed.But this was a time when everyone did their part to win the war. Women became part of the workforce too, either in the factories, ship yards or in banks, schools or business because the men were gone. No one complained. We all did what we could for the war effort- even something as small as saving bacon greece or gum wrappers.

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