War Hero Don Singlestad Doesn't Need Red Bull Energy Drink
Don Singlestad, 92, doesn’t need Red Bull energy drink. He’s a real Red Bull, the most decorated non-commissioned officer of the 34th Division of the Red Bull Infantry. In September, our customer at Heritage Manor in Park Rapids will travel to Vernio, Italy, for the dedication of a road honoring the Red Bulls.
Jean Ruzicka of the Park Rapids Enterprise newspaper wrote a great article about his role in ensuring Rome was “preserved, rather than falling victim to the ravages of combat.” Technical Sergeant Singlestad received the Italian Military Medal of Valor Gold Cross – a citation equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor – for his role in operating with partisans behind enemy lines. He was one of five persons (3 Americans) to be recognized with this honor during World War II. He’s also a Distinguished Service Cross recipient
Don participated in the first U.S. invasion of Africa and was captured by the Germans. He was sent to a French prison camp and wasn’t released until the French joined Allied forces. Following Africa he went to the British Isles to train as an Army Ranger, but he was declared ineligible after his captain learned he was married. Don rejoined the 34th Red Bull Division in General Patton’s Fifth Army until the war’s end.
On Feb. 4, 1944, Singlestad’s platoon was attacked by the Germans. He and one of his squads were surrounded and cut off from the rest of the company. He fought his way free by moving forward, throwing hand grenades in his advance. Expending his ammunition he used his rifle as a club against the enemy who surrounded him. He felled two soldiers, dived over a rock wall, seized another rifle and continued his advance to the company command post. He provided valuable information to his commanding officer and reorganized his platoon in repulsing enemy attack.
Don later entered Rom three days before American troops arrived. He helped set up communications in to direct air and artillery to protect the Vatican and other ancient buildings. His heroics led to a personal tour of the Vatican by the Pope. As Don readies for his return trip to Italy, he’s also writing a book on his experiences called Fighting Fool.
We salute you and thank you, Don.
Don Singlestad, 92, doesn’t need Red Bull energy drink. He’s an original Red Bull, the most decorated non-commissioned officer of the 34th Division of the Red Bull Infantry. In September, our customer at Heritage Manor in Park Rapids will travel to
Jean Ruzicka of the Park Rapids Enterprise newspaper wrote a great article that is archived here about his role in ensuring
Don participated in the first
On Feb. 4, 1944, Singlestad’s platoon was attacked by the Germans. He and one of his squads were surrounded and cut off from the rest of the company. He fought his way free by moving forward, throwing hand grenades in his advance. Expending his ammunition he used his rifle as a club against the enemy who surrounded him. He felled two soldiers, dived over a rock wall, seized another rifle and continued his advance to the company command post. He provided valuable information to his commanding officer and reorganized his platoon in repulsing enemy attack.
Don later entered Rom three days before American troops arrived. He helped set up communications in to direct air and artillery to protect the
We salute you and thank you, Don.
Our Gratitude to the Next Generation's Heros:
Last Thursday, Daniel Drevnick, 22, of Woodbury, Minn.; James Wertish, 20, of Olivia, Minn.; and Carlos Wilcox, 27, of Cottage Grove, Minn.; were killed in a missile attack in Iraq. All three National Guard specialists were members of the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division.
On Sunday, as several hundred people gathered in Stillwater, Minn. to honor those three, we learned that two more Minnesotans had lost their lives as the result of injuries suffered in Afghanistan. Ben Kopp, 21, of Rosemount, died Saturday at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he had been in a coma due to wounds received on July 10. The day before, Air Force Capt. Thomas J. Gramith, 27, a St. Paul native who had moved his family to North Carolina, was killed when his fighter jet crashed.
Our gratitude to them for their sacrifices for us and our country. May they rest in peace.
You're Invited to Citizens League Workshop on Innovation in Long-Term Care Financing
YOU'RE INVITED TO A CITIZENS LEAGUE WORKSHOP TO HELP SHAPE LONG-TERM CARE FINANCING INNOVATION IN MINNESOTA:
How to Participate
Please register online at: www.citizensleague.org/what/policy/aging If you have questions about the project itself, feel free to contact Stacy Becker, the project manager, at 651-646-5288 or stacybecker@comcast.net
Project Sponsors
This project is being directed and organized by the non-partisan Citizens League in partnership with twenty-two funders representing senior service organizations (including Ecumen), care providers, the health and medical industry, senior housing, the insurance industry and the business community.
Project Summary
Through spirited discussions and a review of data and literature, a project Steering Team arrived at this framing of long-term care financing: “What policy changes are needed to create incentives for personal responsibility for long-term care?” In short, they agreed that while there are many public issues involved with long-term care, the key issue regarding financing is the likely explosive growth in publicly subsidized care (i.e., Medicaid) and its corollary that more and more people cannot afford the long-term care they need.
Most important, the group has focused on influencing total costs, not simply on how to pay for those costs. The policy variables are the incentives and disincentives in people’s lives that create or minimize public and personal costs in three key areas: financial behaviors, informal care and health and medical choices. Please note that the emphasis on personal behavior does not preclude changes to the larger systems (i.e., Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security) that impact the well-being of the elderly. Indeed, the workings of these systems have profound impacts on people’s choices and behaviors. Furthermore, the emphasis on personal responsibility is not meant to deny the need for a safety net. To the contrary, the pressures on public funding could well erode benefits for those who truly need help.
Project Participants
The success of the workshops will depend on having a broad range of perspectives so that participants can interact, share and learn from one another as they jointly develop ideas for long-term care. The Citizens League has found from past workshops that collectively, participants have the expertise needed to develop solutions to tough problems.
Workshop Schedule and Location
Three workshops are scheduled. You may sign up for one or more workshops. Each workshop will consist of two sessions: an afternoon session followed by a morning session. The Citizens League has found that the overnight breather helps to clarify thoughts and stimulate ideas.
All workshops will be held at the Citizens League board room, 4th floor, 555 Wabasha Street, downtown Saint Paul. There is some free parking behind the building; enter off 10th street. There is also ample metered parking. Map and directions can be found at: www.citizensleague.org/directions
Informal care, Monday Aug 3rd, 12-4 p.m. and Tuesday Aug 4th, 8:30-11:30 a.m.
This workshop will address questions such as:
• Has informal care-giving become a different type of family burden that it was in the past—does it exceed what should be expected of families and/or create longer-term societal problems?
• What role is desirable for informal care to play in our LTC system? Necessary? What incentives, infrastructure or support is necessary in order for that role to be fulfilled?
• What does informal care provide that it alone can provide—there are no substitutes?
• Who in the community or what could reasonably substitute for family-provided informal care? What would be needed to develop a “market” for such care?
Health/medical choices, Monday Aug 17th, 12-4 p.m. and Tuesday Aug 18th, 8:30-11:30 a.m.
This workshop will address questions such as:
• What function does Medicaid serve for the low income elderly that could not be achieved by modifying Medicare?
• Do people with chronic disease and disability lack incentives to manage their care, or the means? What policies would be effective in redressing these shortcomings?
• Research is clear that past certain points, additional Medicare spending does not produce higher quality health outcomes. How do we align personal interest with the public interest when people are making medical choices?
• What happens when someone goes from hospital to nursing home to home, or hospital to home? What is the role of transitional care and good discharge planning?
• Is our concept of nursing homes obsolete? If so, what do they need to become?
Financial incentives, Monday Aug 24th, 12-4 p.m. and Tuesday Aug 25th, 8:30-11:30 a.m.
This workshop will address questions such as:
• Arguably, no generation has had to provide for LTC in the way that we do today—people living longer, with fewer children to care for them, both spouses working to make ends meet, and costly health care. Do we need to rethink what “personal responsibility” means in this new environment?
• Do people with minimal retirement savings lack incentives to save, or the means?
• What role should long-term care insurance play? What design features are imperative in order for it to play this instrumental role?
• Should we consider Boomers, especially older Boomers, as a separate problem? Is it possible to design savings incentives that would work for them? Even if they work a few more years, is it too late?
• Under what conditions should LTC for all be financed through a public system (e.g., under Medicare?)
• Medicaid takes an “on/off” approach—one is on Medicaid or not. Does it make sense to start thinking about a system which encourages people to contribute what they can? What would that look like?
• What types of assets should be fair game for contributing to one’s LTC (currently a house, car, farm, etc. can be retained). Does the desire to leave a legacy have any social value? For whom? Is it possible to align personal and public interest here? How?
What You Can Expect
Participant role: Participants are the main feature in these workshops. Participants will work in groups to discuss goals and outcomes, and then develop ideas to reach those outcomes. A short brief will be prepared of research to help workshop participants brainstorm and to know what types of incentives may work. But the true cross current of ideas is expected to come from participants—the workshops will host a diversity of perspectives, experiences and expertise.
Further, the Citizens League is interested in using these workshops to create a collective agreement on how Minnesota should address long-term care financing. The broad range of participation is hoped to jump start the all-important process of reaching agreement on how Minnesota needs to move forward.
Meals: Lunch will be provided day one, and breakfast the following morning.
Special arrangements: If you would like to participate but need help with special logistical arrangements, please call Cat at 651-293-0575.
How the Results Will Be Used
The Steering Team will review the ideas that emerge from the workshops. Their charge will be to identify important linkages across the three workshops and to determine what if any additional information (such as actuarial analysis) is necessary to prioritize, test and refine the ideas. Based on the analysis, the Steering Team will develop a proposed action plan of the most promising ideas. We will post the draft plan on the Citizens League web site and notify workshop participants so they may comment on the plan. The final plan will contain two to five ideas that Minnesota can implement to create a sustainable, viable LTC financing system that ensures quality care for all Minnesotans.
Candidate Paul Thissen Looking to Bring Age Wave Innovation to Minnesota Governor's Office
Interesting Politics in Minnesota interview with Rep. Paul Thissen who is running for governor of Minnesota.
Thissen is a Harvard-educated Minnesota state legislator who used to play pick up hoops with Barack Obama at the University of Chicago, where Thissen received his law degree. Like Obama did, Thissen now is running for higher office: governor of Minnesota.
Thissen is well-respected in the State Legislature and has not shied away from seeking innovation in health care and senior services. He was the lead behind Communities for a Lifetime legislation that passed this year to help make Minnesota communities good places to grow up and grow old. Now he's making the Age Wave a key part of his gubernatorial platform. Smart move. Other gubernatorial candidates need to do the same thing. The Age Wave is here, it's expanding and it's changing our state in never before-seen ways. The opportunity: leadership to ensure it changes Minnesota for the better. We look forward to featuring other candidates who embrace changing aging.
10 Things a Church Needs to Know About Seniors
Got a delightful phone call from Ecumen customer Honor Hacker today. She brought to my attention an article "10 Things the Church Should Know About Seniors" in the National Catholic Reporter authored by Carol Luebering. Good list that applies across denominations and ages. Below is a preview. Go here for the full article and expanded insights on the list. What would you add to Carol's list?
1. We are the precious resources that don't always show up on the balance sheet.
2. We are the historians with long memories.
3. Although we mourn many losses and read the obituaries daily to see who else has left us, we are, some studies have shown, surprisingly happy.
4. A lot of us no longer move with ease; some of us depend on walkers or wheelchairs. We need for you to make sure there are spaces in the church to accommodate those aids.
5. Our hearing is not as keen as it used to be. Pay careful attention to your sound system and to those who use it.
6. We need to be missed.
7. We need to get special attention when we are recovering from an illness.
8. We need to keep in touch with other older members of the community.
9. We need to feel useful.
10.We need to invest in the future.
House Democrats Ignore Long-Term Care Financing Reform
House Democratic leaders Tuesday unveiled their bill to reform America's health care system — and insure an additional 37 million Americans over the next 10 years - to the tune of more than $1 trillion, funded mostly through an up-to-5.4 percent surtax on income for the wealthiest Americans. What's missing? Long-term care financing reform. All they talk about is "studies." Ideally as this process winds its way through, long-term care financing reform will be put where it needs to be - in health care reform.
The Wisdom of the Gardener by Connie Goldman
Many years ago I used to visit my friend Ruthy's garden. She was not only a master gardener but a wise woman.
“A garden teaches you both patience and acceptance” my friend Ruthy sighed at one point in our conversation. “You put a seed in the ground one morning in the spring and then you wait for it to produce a bloom. Finally a bud comes out and you watch daily for it to open. Then, unexpectedly overnight a squirrel eats it!” That was just example of a life lesson in patience and acceptance learned in the garden.
Ruthy has found that, no matter what the season, a garden teaches spontaneity and non attachment. “You have to be able to respond to what’s there and to the reality that nothing is permanent. A garden teaches you about that you need to get rid of stuff that isn’t right for you, It teaches you about birth and death and about what’s important in between.
Blooming is important, coming to fruition is important. Another thing that a garden teaches us is about its audacity. Seeds will blow in from who knows where and they’ll shoot out of the ground and start to bloom. That’s taught me to put my own two feet on the ground and grow into a flower that blooms – and to be audacious about it”. That thought motivated Ruthy to recite one of the many poems she’s written.
I was born from a seed and grew into a voracious plant,
Part of this garden and intimate in all ways.
Taking food and water as I rise here in the flower sway.
Breathing plant energy, shivering down my spine.
My toes digging in with savory excitement,
Fingertips growing rhythms as I touch and groom,
And bury my nose in fluffy blossom.
That is why the garden sustains me and I, in turn, give it life.
There cannot be one without the other.
Our conversation for that day was ending. As I waved goodbye and started to walk away Ruthy had a bit more garden wisdom to share. “All of my poetry was inspired by keeping my hands in the dirt, as the gardener sows, the gardener grows”
New Poll Shows Major Support for Long-Term Care Financing Reform
A new survey released earlier this week by the SCAN Foundation, shows that nearly 80 percent of people are more likely to support a health care reform proposal that improves coverage for long-term care services. Moreover, substantial majorities of Americans among all demographic groups, including gender, age, income and party affiliation, express deep concern about affording long-term care services as well as strong support for improving long-term care coverage as part of health reform. The results come as President Obama and policymakers in Washington D.C. debate health care reform packages they aim to complete by the end of July.
The National Omnibus Survey on Long-Term Care, conducted by Lake Research Partners on behalf of The SCAN Foundation gauged opinion on long-term care coverage and health care reform from over 1,000 random adults (aged 18 and older). The survey was conducted June 26 through June 29, 2009 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Following is a summary of the survey
Concern for Cost and Quality
- A large majority of Americans – 79 percent – are concerned about their ability to pay for long-term care for themselves or a family member in the future, with nearly half (46 percent) feeling very concerned
- An overwhelming 92 percent of people say it is important to improve coverage for services that help people remain in their home instead of going into a nursing home
Widespread Support for Long-Term Care
- Nearly eight in ten Americans (78 percent) say health care reform would benefit them personally if it included improved coverage for home and community-based long-term care services
- A similar proportion (80 percent) supports including improved coverage for these long-term care services as part of health reform
- In fact, 79 percent say they would be more likely to support a health reform proposal that included improved coverage for home and community-based long-term care services.
ABOUT THE SCAN FOUNDATION
The SCAN Foundation is an independent nonprofit foundation dedicated to advancing the development of a sustainable continuum of quality care for seniors that integrates medical treatment and human services in the settings most appropriate to their needs and with the greatest likelihood of a healthy, independent life. The SCAN Foundation supports programs that stimulate public engagement, develop realistic public policy and financing options, and disseminate promising care models and technologies.
Senior Housing Development Blog Launched by Ecumen
So many people look at our country's changing demographics and have stars in their eyes when it comes to senior housing development. But you can't take the Field of Dreams approach: Just because you build it, doesn't mean they'll come.
Ecumen has launched a new senior housing development blog, the country's first blog dedicated to senior housing development insights. (If you know of another one, please send it our way.) This blog will feature contributions from Ecumen's senior housing development team and its partners from a variety of areas essential to successful senior housing development, including market research, architectural design, financing, construction, marketing, building community, mix of servies, interior design, and more. It also will include interesting information from around the senior housing development arena. America has an incredible opportunity to build communities that people truly want to call "home," and this blog will help people gain new insight into what goes into that.
Long-Term Care Financing Reform Has a Big Day
- It's a long way from passage, but long-term care financing reform is gaining momentum . . .Yesterday President Barack Obama publicly backed efforts to create a new government program to provide long term care insurance as part of the broader health care overhaul. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is chief author of the CLASS Act, that the administration supports the program because it would help elderly and disabled people stay in their own homes.
- Ecumen supports the CLASS Act and long-term care financing reform. Kathryn Roberts opined yesterday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on the issue.
Health Care Reform Must Include Long-Term Care, By Kathryn Roberts
Nearly 3.5 million Minnesota adults are uninsured for long-term care and supportive services, meaning that many of us cannot afford the cost of a longer life or long-term disabilities. Long-term care services and supports must be part of meaningful health care reform.
In public policy, payment and perception, we've mistakenly segregated acute care and chronic care. For example, if someone over 65 suffers a stroke, Medicare jumps in with procedures and payments attempting to save the person. But upon release from the hospital, Medicare ignores that person's less expensive, longer-duration supportive services, such as a home aide or assisted living. Nor does it pay for such things as Alzheimers care or other intensive long-term care that a young adult with a disability may need.
Nearly 70 percent of those who turned 65 in 2005 will need some long-term services. The average time: three years. Contracting with a home aide just three days per week for two to three hours at a time to provide basics such as meal preparation and help with dressing can easily cost $1,000 per month. Nursing home care is much more expensive, $50,000 or more a year in Minnesota.
The status quo means many will continue impoverishing themselves and turning to Medicaid, a government program and de facto long-term care provider. Primarily paying for institutional care, its "payments" already fall far short in meeting true costs. Without financing reform, we are simply cost-shifting and avoiding the main issue -- finance reform for longevity and chronic care.
One approach is cutting Medicaid (called elderly waiver in Minnesota) for people in assisted living. In many cases this means another family member misses work juggling care for a loved one, or a person lives without supportive services, beginning the more arduous, expensive volley between home and hospital.
Another policy idea would require seniors to undergo precertification before choosing assisted living. Just because you're older and want to privately pay for housing with supportive services, you'd need state approval. The premise: State certification will "save" you money for when you "need" a nursing home. Precertification is ageism missing the fact that supportive services empower people while keeping them out of much more expensive government institutions.
Our overriding goals should be empowering people to live in the most independent setting possible; transforming nursing homes into right-sized, very specialized chronic-care centers; taking a personal share in costs of chronic care and supportive services, and ensuring a strong safety net for people who never will be able to pay for such care and services.
If America were creating a chronic care system today, we'd never duplicate Medicaid as primary payer. We'd never require people to impoverish themselves to get coverage. And we'dnever rely simply on the hope that people would purchase private care policies. We'd create a solution balancing personal responsibility and a secure safety net.
The CLASS Act (Community Assistance Living Services & Supports) introduced by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is that opportunity. In the opt-out insurance plan, people would pay a premium of approximately $65 per month in return for a minimum daily benefit of $50 that they can self-direct. It would make private wrap-around insurance policies appealing because consumers would easily understand what their dollars buy and they'd know such a product could guarantee quality of life and fiscal security. It also could gain a state good housekeeping seal.
The Congressional Budget Office's evaluation of the CLASS Act shows no cost to the government over the next 10 years, a positive savings of $2.5 billion in Medicaid in the first 10 years alone, and long-term sustainability. This would transform financing of long-term services and supports, assist America's workers and future retirees, enhance intergenerational financial security, and promote choice and independence.
Without a long-term care financing solution, America doesn't have health care reform, and Minnesota has an extremely large and immediate problem to solve.