The brief's key findings are:
Health care costs loom as a major risk for retirees, with nursing home care as the real wild card.
A typical couple at age 65 can expect to spend over its remaining lifetime:
-$197,000 with a 5-percent risk of exceeding $311,000, excluding nursing home care; or
-$260,000 with a 5-percent risk of exceeding $570,000, including nursing home care.
Households need to figure out how to handle such risk.
See also:
- Abstract
- Working Paper
California was once a leader in innovating new ways to provide long-term care services that allow older adults and the disabled to remain safely in their homes as long as possible. In the early 1970s, for example, a San Francisco organization called On Lok innovated a comprehensive program that created an adult day health center and supportive in home services to allow seniors to remain out of nursing homes. By 1990 this model, now called the Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), had been successfully replicated elsewhere and became a Medicare/Medicaid waiver program that is now available nationally (http://www.npaonline.org/website/article.asp?id=12). The state was also a laboratory for the development of the Social HMO, consumer directed home care services, and caregiver support services.
Hundreds of thousands of seniors are likely to lose some or all of the assistance they rely on to remain at home. Available program data suggest that budget cuts are not necessarily targeting the least disabled. Studies from other states document that such cuts increase emergency room, hospital and nursing home use. Experts from a range of organizations dealing with the elderly in California who served as key informants for this research concur that these are likely outcomes from California's budget cuts, along with increased stress on family caregivers (for those fortunate enough to have a family caregiver) and reduced jobs and benefits for paid caregivers. This report begins with a summary of the cuts and provides detailed discussions of how those cuts will impact the major programs and populations affected. It offers a summary of our key informant interviews on this topic as well as a summary of the published literature on the effectiveness of these types of programs. We end with a call for California to return to its past innovative spirit of designing new ways to help disabled older adults remain safely at home.
See also:
Policy Brief
Source: United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-10-6, November 30, 2009
Voting is fundamental to the U.S. democratic system and federal law provides broad protections for people with disabilities, including older voters. Many long-term care facility residents, who often have physical or cognitive impairments, vote by absentee or early ballot. Concerns have been raised about the extent to which states and localities are helping the increasing number of facility residents exercise their right to vote, especially those requiring voting assistance, who may be subject to undue influence or unauthorized completion of their ballot by facility staff or relatives. Given these concerns, GAO was asked to identify the actions taken to facilitate and protect voting for long-term care facility residents at (1) the state level and (2) the local level. To address these objectives, GAO interviewed federal officials, national organizations, and researchers; reviewed Election Assistance Commission (EAC) guidance on voting in long-term care facilities; surveyed state and local election officials; and visited seven localities in the weeks prior to the November 2008 federal election to observe the voting process in long-term care facilities. Most states have requirements or guidance to facilitate voting for long-term care facility residents, and some states also provide training and conduct oversight of localities' adherence to state requirements or guidance. States reported that they most commonly provided requirements or guidance for accommodations for absentee voting for residents of long-term care facilities, followed by accommodations for voter registration and voter identification procedures. Almost one-half of the states reported providing training to local election officials specifically on state requirements or guidance to facilitate voting for long-term care facility residents. Additionally, 17 states reported that they conducted one or more oversight activities to ensure that localities were adhering to state long-term care voting requirements or guidance. According to researchers, some of these state requirements or guidance for voting in long-term care facilities may help to protect against voter fraud and undue influence. Localities also used a variety of actions to facilitate voting for long-term care facility residents, including some that may decrease the likelihood of fraud and undue influence. In our survey, 78 of the 92 localities reported taking actions to facilitate voting for long-term care facility residents. The most common actions included supporting facility staff in assisting residents with the absentee or early voting process, including providing staff with early and absentee voting information or guidance. Localities also reported providing services directly to residents. For example, close to one-half of localities we surveyed brought election officials to facilities to assist with the voting process. The seven localities we visited prior to the November 2008 federal election used a range of strategies to facilitate voting for long-term care facility residents, including coordination with facility staff and other stakeholders; the deployment of election teams to facilities; and implementation of procedures to protect and ensure voting integrity, such as requiring bipartisan voting assistance and signed affidavits to document voting assistance. Some local officials reported challenges to implementing these strategies, such as difficulty providing voting assistance to residents with cognitive impairments.
Source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Press Release, October 21, 2009
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced plans to establish the nation's first national resource center to assist communities across the country in their efforts to provide services and supports for older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 to 4 million LGBT individuals are age 60 and older. Agencies that provide services to older individuals may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this group of individuals. The new Resource Center for LGBT Elders will provide information, assistance and resources for both LGBT organizations and mainstream aging services providers at the state and community level to assist them in the development and provision of culturally sensitive supports and services. The LGBT Center will also be available to educate the LGBT community about the importance of planning ahead for future long term care needs.
The LGBT Resource Center will help community-based organizations understand the unique needs and concerns of older LGBT individuals and assist them in implementing programs for local service providers, including providing help to LGBT caregivers who are providing care for an older partner with health or other challenges.
Source: Patrick Purcell, Congressional Research Service, RL30629, September 16, 2009
From the summary:
As the members of the "baby boom" generation--people born between 1946 and 1964-- approach retirement, the demographic profile of the U.S. workforce will undergo a substantial shift as a large number of older workers will be joined by relatively few new entrants to the labor force. According to the Census Bureau, there will be 204 million Americans aged 25 or older in 2010. By 2030, this number will increase by 23% to more than 251 million. Most of this growth will occur among people aged 65 and older. The Census Bureau estimates that while the number of people between the ages of 25 and 64 will increase by 15.5 million (9.4%) between 2010 and 2030, the number of people aged 65 and older is projected to grow by 31.7 million, or 79.2%.
Source: Experience Works, September 2009
From the summary:
In a new study of more than 2,000 low-income unemployed workers age 55 and older, 46 percent need to find jobs so they don't lose their homes or apartments, and approximately half (49 percent) have been looking for work for more than a year.
Many of the older workers in the study did not plan to be looking for work in their 60s, 70s and 80s, but a life event triggered their need to find employment. These triggering events include being laid off (20 percent); the death of a spouse (16 percent); and large medical bills due to a personal illness or illness of a spouse (15 percent).
More than one-third (38 percent) of older workers surveyed had retired but they are going back to work, and many have no end in sight for their working years.
For those who do have a retirement timeframe, the average targeted retirement age is 72. Ninety percent of survey respondents age 76 and older plan to continue working in the next five years.
Source: National Association of State Units on Aging, June 2009
From the press release:
The National Association of State Units on Aging (NASUA) released the findings today of its fourth economic survey of the state units on aging in the last year. The survey conducted in May 2009 revealed that despite the funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), 60 percent of states must reduce their agencies' budgets for FY10.
While ARRA funding appeared to have the effect of allowing states to maintain services for food and nutrition programs, over 20 percent of the states indicated that they will have to resort to cutting back services to consumers. Those services include Older Americans Act programs, disability programs, Medicaid, and home- and community-based services and supports.
See also:
- PowerPoint Presentation
- NASUA Economic Survey
- Economic Downturn Follow up Report
Source: Frank Porell, Beth Almeida, National Institute on Retirement Security, July 2009
From the summary:
Defined benefit pension income plays a critical role in reducing the risk of poverty and hardship for older Americans. Poverty rates among older households lacking pension income are about six times greater than those with such income.
The study finds that pensions reduce - and in some cases eliminate - the greater risk of poverty and public assistance dependence that women and minority populations otherwise would face.
See also:
- Press Release
- Fact Sheet
- FAQ
Source: Kevin Kinsella and Wan He, U.S. Census Bureau, P95/09-1, June 2009
From the press release:
The average age of the world's population is increasing at an unprecedented rate. The number of people worldwide 65 and older is estimated at 506 million as of midyear 2008; by 2040, that number will hit 1.3 billion. Thus, in just over 30 years, the proportion of older people will double from 7 percent to 14 percent of the total world population, according to a new report, An Aging World: 2008.
See also:
Why Population Aging Matters: A Global Perspective
Source: AARP Research Report, June 2009
This set of State Health Care Briefs provides a one-page overview of facts on health care data for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Information is provided about each state's older population, the uninsured, Medicare beneficiaries including those who fall into the "doughnut hole," hospital re-admissions among Medicare beneficiaries, the distribution of Medicaid long-term care funds, and prescription drug spending.
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