Aging

By the time she was hospitalized in 2020, Pearlene Darby, a retired teacher, had suffered open sores on both legs, both hips, and both heels, as well as a five-inch-long gash on her tailbone. She died two weeks later at age 81 from infections and bedsores, according to her death certificate. Her daughter sued the […]

This story is a collaboration between Kaiser Health News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. After Brenda McClary’s multiple sclerosis began flaring up every few months, she lost her job as a hospital billing clerk, and with it her health insurance. Since then, the 57-year-old Darby resident has found basic coverage for $127 a month. But the […]

What if all Americans could buy government long-term care insurance starting as soon as they got their first jobs? For a maximum monthly premium of $65, they could get a lifetime benefit of $50-to-$100-a-day. They could purchase additional private insurance if they wanted it, but they’d always have basic coverage to help pay for care […]

Once a senior begins receiving long-term care services, she and her family often are in for two shocks. The first is that Medicare won’t pay beyond perhaps a few months after a hospitalization. The second is that while Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, may help, chances are it will only do so for […]

This story is a collaboration between Kaiser Health News and Margaret White peels potatoes as she prepares lunch at her home in Alexandria, Va. With help from Inova Mount Vernon Hospital, White is doing a better job managing her congestive heart failure — and staying out of the hospital (Marcus Yam – Washington Post). Doctors […]

Because of its size and cost, Medicaid has been called the “workhorse” of the U.S. health system. Now it’s front and center in the debate on overhauling the U.S health system and expanding coverage to the uninsured. With 60 million enrollees, Medicaid dwarfs other insurance programs, including its cousin, Medicare, which covers 44 million elderly […]

This story comes from our partner  Alzheimer’s is thought of as a disease of the elderly. But there are also people – maybe a couple hundred thousand or more – who have Alzheimer’s in their 40s and 50s. People like Teresa Lambert, who is 54. Related Audio All Things Considered Lambert has come to Washington […]

Joe Donahue’s mother Alice Donahue spent her last three years in a Connecticut nursing home, slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. Her three sons, who lived nearby in central Connecticut, visited regularly. By the time she died in 1990 at age 86, her modest estate-about $200,000 all told–had succumbed as well, used up to pay for […]

This story is a collaboration between Kaiser Health News and When 81-year-old Sally Darr needed nursing home care after injuring herself in a fall, her family turned to a new federal rating system for help. The online tool uses movie-review-style ratings – one to five stars – to compare homes based on such measures as […]