What you need to know about Medicaid Long-term care recovery

 U. S, News and World Report recently did an in depth article discussing Medicaid Long-term Care estate recovery that disproportionately catches the heirs of minority and low-income families by surprise, mainly because they have no access to legal assistance.

Build Back Better

 

Cleaning up on Saturday afternoon and here the familiar sound of my girl Donna Edwards on MSNBC. I hope she is right and the Democrats get their act together. 

The Freedom To Vote Act

Today Congress will vote on the Freedom To Vote Act with states drawing redistricting maps it is important that this legislation passes so th hat we can make sure that our votes/voices are not diluted/diminished. 

The American Bar Association is presenting a seminar this October 21, 2021 Caregiver Seminar I will be a panelist on the seminar, please register and attend, if you are a caregiver. You should also register to attend even though you may not be a caregiver today, you may become one tomorrow.

The Freedom To Vote Act should be a priority for the U, S, Congress to pass to ensure that minority communities are fairly represented. 

"If passed by Congress, the legislation would put in place the most transformative changes to the redistricting process in the country’s history, including banning partisan gerrymandering, strengthening other protections for communities of color, and making it easier for voters to get bad maps quickly struck down in court. "

White politicians are using redistricting to try and hold on to power

 According to the Brennan Center for Justice data, Brennan Center Data minority populations have increased and should be reflected in increased representation in the U. S. Congress. But white politicians are using gerrymandered redistricting maps to stay in office.

"To spotlight our country’s evolving racial and ethnic makeup, the Brennan Center analyzed the demographic trends of four states: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. We found that all four states are experiencing rapid population growth among Black, Latino, and Asian communities, which should translate into more political power as states redraw their legislative and congressional maps to better reflect their diversifying populations.

Yet this almost certainly won’t happen.

In all four states, the redistricting process is controlled by one party, in this case, the Republican Party. All four states also have an ugly recent history of redistricting abuses and racial discrimination. And all four states have seen the demographics of their suburbs change dramatically, despite often being originally designed to exclude people of color."

Elizabeth Warren wants Billionaires to pay social infrastructure instead of trips to space

In an article in The Hill, Elizabeth Warren wants billionaires to pay for Reconciliation Bill

"Warren, when asked during an interview on “The View” where the money will come from to pay for the $3.5 trillion package, pointed to billionaires and corporations, specifically mentioning Amazon after its founder Jeff Bezos took a trip to space this summer.

“The money is going to come from the billionaires who don't pay their taxes and therefore have enough money to shoot themselves into space,” Warren said."

Advocates went to Washington D. C. to fight to keep money for caregivers in the

 Changing the future for caregivers in America is tied to legislation before Congress Build Back Better Plan

The 19th wrote in an article on October 12, 2021:

"Some members of Congress stopped by the vigil. In the afternoon, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington paid an unexpected visit. Jayapal is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has pushed Biden to “hold the line” on proposed funding for expanding and strengthening care programs. 

“For me, it’s about women in particular, the majority of women, largely immigrant women who do [care work] every day, to care for our elderly, our most vulnerable folks with disabilities. We need to reward that work,” Jayapal told The 19th. Jayapal took issue with an idea, reportedly embraced by Manchin, that Democrats choose just one policy priority to aid working families." 

"Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania closed out the vigil, with ADAPT members in their wheelchairs and neon regalia, home care workers in purple SEIU T-shirts and more protesters standing behind him. Casey, a Democrat, has been one of the biggest and most consistent supporters of home care funding in the Senate, not just for this reconciliation bill, but for his entire career. He spoke to rally the same protesters and advocates in 2017, in support of preserving funding for home care funded by Medicaid, as well as the Affordable Care Act as a whole. This time, Casey read a few stories himself, before his staff accepted five cardboard file boxes filled with pages of home care workers, family members and disabled people desperately asking for relief.

After he finished addressing the crowd, Casey told The 19th that he planned to get as many of the boxed stories on the congressional record as possible." 

 Historically, caregivers have been left out of minimum wage protection, paid sick leave and social security because the government excluded them from these types of basic economic security. Racist and sexist government policies have historicallymade women the working poor .There is hope that the new legislation being proposed in the U.S. Congress will change that.

 Most caregivers do not receive paid sick leave or paid family leave, this is an economic hardship, Paid Family Leave would help this female dominated group of workers. "The results follow another Bipartisan Policy Center survey conducted in April that found that about 10.6 million workers left their jobs in the past year due to caregiving responsibilities. Black and Hispanic workers were more likely to say caregiving had significantly affected their ability to work."

Most caregivers are women and they suffer economically as well as emotionally

People are desperately trying to care to care for their loved ones whether they are elderly or young; disabled or able bodied, competent or suffering with lack of capacity. People, mainly women, shoulder most of the caregiving responsibilities at home and find that there is not a lot of support available. A recent Washington Post article on Home Care discussed the dismal state of the home and community based waiver program here in Maryland. On October 21, 2021, I will be participating in an American Bar Association seminar Workplace Caregiver Challenge and its Impact on Wealth where we will be discussing how caregiving disproportionately affects women.

 Here are some relevant observations from the Washington Post article:

Home-care workers earn a median wage of $12 an hour, and about a fifth of them live in poverty, according to the Economic Policy Institute. The Medicaid rate for direct-support professionals (DSPs), who make up the bulk of home-care workers, can be half or a third of what private payers offer, so many staffing agencies don’t take Medicaid reimbursement.

In Maryland, the number of nursing home beds for long-term care had been declining for more than a decade before the pandemic. Rather than admit their loved ones into an institution, some families empty their savings to pay for a professional caregiver or have a relative, often a woman, cut down on work to provide care herself.

In 2005, facing criticism that the long-term care system in the United States had an “institutional bias,” the federal government made it possible — but not mandatory — for states to offer home and community-based services (HCBS) with Medicaid dollars. The goal was to let regular families access at-home help, a type of care usually reserved for the affluent. But over the past decade, experts say, these waiver programs have fallen far short of meeting demand.

In the caregiver Facebook groups that Rivers was in, people talked about a bill in Congress — recently absorbed into the $3.5 trillion spending plan mired in debate on Capitol Hill — that would permanently bump up the federal match for home-based care and designate $400 billion for states to expand access to such services.

The Nursing Home Improvement and Accountability Act of 2021

 We have to be the voce for those that sometimes can not speak for themselves. I personally do not support nursing homes placing Medicaid residents four (4) in a room! There is legislation that has been filed in the U. S. Congress that attempts to improve nursing homes. The Nursing Home Improvement and Accountability Act of 2021 , among many needed reforms, the bill calls for changes to the physical and cultural environment of nursing homes. The bill would create a demonstration project that looks at the Green House Model with a goal of improving the quality of life and allow older Americans to live with dignity, even if they can not speak for themselves.