My work as a home health care personal attendant and my own approach, at age 61, into the governmental intricacies related to Social Security, Medicare, and care for the elderly have brought a few issues to my attention.
Who knew?
Medicare might help the elderly with some medical benefits.
Medicare will do absolutely nothing to help the elderly who are motivated to stay as independent and healthy as possible for as long possible.
Home health care services are only provided if one is so sick that skilled nursing services are required. No home health services are offered for what elderly folks want most (and would in the long run cost the least)--staying healthy, staying independent, and having some control over one's own finances.
Long-term care is only provided for up to two years (Medicare) and then only if one requires skilled nursing care (not just help getting in and out bed or support while walking or support with chores). Most private long-term care insurance policies are no-better.
What does one do after two-years? How does a responsible elderly person navigate this complex system?
I picked up a 2010 Medicare booklet and read it. Medicare policies are as sorry as the tax code, as sorry as sorry insurance companies, and just plain pitiful. Prescription drug benefits and choices are a joke.
Reading the 2010 Medicare booklet may have been even more depressing than reading this year's tax instruction booklet with its references to See Publication XYZ and fill out form #xxxx for line 57 of work sheet #12 to determine amount to place on line whatever on form 1040.
Some Kossacks are too young to deal with this right now. Some Kossacks are old enough to know the problems, either for themselves or for their aging family members.
Some Kossacks, like myself, are approaching retirement age and just plain flummoxed by the system and choices and planning that are required simply to stay healthy, pay one's bills, and make sound choices for oneself and one's family.
Health care reform is desperately needed. The health care reform bill currently before Congress is a huge step forward, while at the same time being woefully inadequate to address the real needs of real people.
If ever there was a good place to funnel federal money, it would be to move some of it toward the kind of jobs that will help elderly people stay both independent and healthy for as long as possible.
A little bit of help in the home health care department can go a long way. Access to an appropriate assisted-living facility should not require that all one's assets go first to an attorney.
I don't have the answers. But I can see the problems. And I'm ready to ask the questions. What are we going to do about this?