Aging
Desperate Families Search for Affordable Home Care
It’s a good day when Frank Lee, a retired chef, can slip out to the hardware store, fairly confident that his wife, Robin, is in the hands of reliable help. He spends nearly every hour of every day anxiously overseeing her care at their home on the Isle of Palms, a barrier island near Charleston, […]
What to Know About Home Care Services
Most older Americans want to live at home as long as they can, but finding and affording the help they need often isn’t easy. There are severe shortages of home health aides in many parts of the country. Hiring them is costly. And most middle-class people will have to pay for home care themselves if […]
In Congress, Calls Mount for Social Security to Address Clawbacks
An investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group gained further traction on Capitol Hill this week as additional members of Congress formally demanded answers from the Social Security Administration about billions of dollars it mistakenly paid to beneficiaries — and then ordered they repay. Two members of a Senate panel that oversees Social Security […]
Adultos mayores, detectives contra avisos engañosos de Medicare Advantage
Después de una ofensiva sin precedentes contra las publicidades engañosas de las aseguradoras que venden planes privados de Medicare Advantage y de medicamentos, la administración Biden espera utilizar un arma especial para asegurarse que las empresas sigan las nuevas reglas: esa arma eres tú. Funcionarios de los Centros de Servicios de Medicare y Medicaid (CMS) […]
Uncle Sam Wants You … to Help Stop Insurers’ Bogus Medicare Advantage Sales Tactics
After an unprecedented crackdown on misleading advertising claims by insurers selling private Medicare Advantage and drug plans, the Biden administration hopes to unleash a special weapon to make sure companies follow the new rules: you. Officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are encouraging seniors and other members of the public to become […]
Medicare Advantage Increasingly Popular With Seniors — But Not Hospitals and Doctors
A hospital system in Georgia. Two medical groups in San Diego. Another in Louisville, Kentucky, and nearly one-third of Nebraska hospitals. Across the country, health care providers are refusing to accept some Medicare Advantage plans — even as the coverage offered by commercial insurers increasingly displaces the traditional government program for seniors and people with […]
She Once Advised the President on Aging Issues. Now, She’s Battling Serious Disability and Depression.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. The GoFundMe request jumped out at me as I was scrolling through posts on LinkedIn. Nora Super, executive director of the 2015 White House Conference on […]
Back Pain? Bum Knee? Be Prepared to Wait for a Physical Therapist
At no point along his three-year path to earning a degree in physical therapy has Matthew Lee worried about getting a job. Being able to make a living off that degree? That’s a different question — and the answer is affecting the supply of physical therapists across the nation: The cost of getting trained is […]
A Guide to Long-Term Care Insurance
If you’re wealthy, you’ll be able to afford help in your home or care in an assisted living facility or a nursing home. If you’re poor, you can turn to Medicaid for nursing homes or aides at home. But if you’re middle-class, you’ll have a thorny decision to make: whether to buy long-term care insurance. […]
Why Long-Term Care Insurance Falls Short for So Many
For 35 years, Angela Jemmott and her five brothers paid premiums on a long-term care insurance policy for their 91-year-old mother. But the policy does not cover home health aides whose assistance allows her to stay in her Sacramento, California, bungalow, near the friends and neighbors she loves. Her family pays $4,000 a month for […]