Tag Archives for AARP

The Best of…AARP Report Sheds Light on the Needs of Older Disabled Persons

Published May 26, 2012, Pawtucket Times   

           AARP, a Washington, DC-based aging advocacy group, generates a new report to provide direction to the nation’s policy makers as to how to keep America’s age 50 and over disabled population independent and in  control of their daily lives. 

           According to the latest AARP study, lack of affordable services, a fragmented delivery system and the caregiver’s limited knowledge of the delivery system, are barriers that keep age 50 and over Americans with disabilities from living active and independent lives. 

           The AARP report, “Beyond 50 2003: A Report to the Nation on Independent Living and Disability,” incorporates data obtained from the first ever national survey of Americans age 50+ with disabilities, documenting the gap between what they say, need, and what is available to them. 

           “Long-term independence for persons with disabilities is an increasingly achievable social goal, AARP Policy and Strategy Director John Rother says in a written statement released with this report.  “But it will require time and the collective creativity of the public and private sectors,” he added. 

           “Meanwhile, even minor changes can lead – at least in the short-term – to important life-style improvements for those with disabilities today,“ Rother said.  On the other hand, long-term improvements will require fundamental policy changes.

           “As the influx of Boomers enters their 50’s and 60’s, they will bring their attitudes of competitive consumerism to health care delivery, and will demand greater choice and control of available services,” explained Rother.   “The good news is that there is time to prepare for those demands, he said.  “Along with improvements in medicine and health, we are seeing some declines in disability.  New technologies are also extending Americans’ years of independence.”

           According to the AARP report, 46 percent of the over 50 respondents with disabilities (including nearly 60 percent of those between the ages of 50 and 64) believe that having more control over decisions about services and the help they need would bring a major improvement in the quality of their lives.   However, they report that their greatest fear is loss of independence and mobility.

           The AARP report, the third in a series of comprehensive studies on the status of Americans over age 50, found that 51percent of older persons with disabilities are managing independently; 49 percent are not receiving any regular help with daily activities, such as cooking, bathing and shopping.  More than half of those with disabilities (53 percent) tell researchers that they were unable to do something they needed or wanted to do in the past month – quite often basic tasks such as household chores or exercise.

           Most (88 percent) of the assistance the older disabled persons reported receiving is volunteer assistance from family or other informal caregivers.  Sixty one percent strongly prefer this type of assistance with everyday tasks, while only one out of three uses any community-based service. 

            The AARP report found that independence, for older disabled persons, can be easily enhanced by using assistive equipment (such as walkers and wheelchairs) and new technologies that are now more widely available.  However, caregiver assistance with daily activities will take more time and resources.   The researchers estimate that as many as three million persons over age 50 with disabilities (almost 25 percent) need more assistance than they receive now with daily activities. 

           Furthermore, the report said that persons 50 and older with disabilities place inadequate health insurance on the top of their list of issues that are not being adequately addressed. Specifically, Medicare coverage still does not pay for prescription drugs and assistive equipment is not covered by some health insurance.

           Adds Rhode Island AARP Director Kathleen Connell, many of the issues addressed in the newly released AARP report are not just about today’s persons with disabilities, but about all of us, who if we live long lives (and longevity is increasing) are likely to face disability.

           “This is about long-term independence and not long term care, which refers not just to what we need during the most vulnerable and frailest stages of our disability, as ‘long term care’ suggests, but to what we want during what, in most cases, is a longer, more functional stage of disability,” Connell tells All About Seniors.

           While minor fixes would make a difference, other improvements will require longer-term fundamental changes and more public dollars.  Based on the “Beyond 50” findings, AARP has outlined a number of policy changes for making critical long-term improvements:

  • Older persons with disabilities must be insured against the high costs of accessing long-term supportive services.  Ways must be found to share the risk of these unpredictable costs more widely among public and private sources. 
  • Public funding for long-term supportive services needs to be reoriented toward more options for home and community-based care. The nation also must provide more options for “consumer-direction” in publicly funded programs.
  •  Communities need to be made more physically accessible for more people with disabilities.
  •  Information and services need to be more navigable for those who are trying to learn more about available long-term services and whether or not they are eligible.
  •  America’s health care system must adjust its focus to enhance functioning and health-related quality of life, not just provide acute and curative care.

             The “Beyond 50” report found that people with disabilities 50 and older give their community poor grades (between C+ and B- in their efforts of making it possible for them to live independently. In many communities, the researchers say, that public transportation is oftentimes rated poorly.

          The researchers say that the troubling findings reveal that the nation is ill-prepared to meet the calls of age 50 and over persons with disabilities for more control and independence in the lives.    

           AARP’s report is a wake up call for state and national policy makers who will be charged with making sound policy decisions for a grayingAmericawith disabilities.  If policy makers heed the recommendations of AARP’s report, systemic changes may well give dignity to millions of older persons with disabilities who only want to remain independent and control of their daily lives.  Just like the rest of us.

           Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based writer covering aging, health care and medical issues.  The article was published in May 2003 in the Pawtucket Times.  His articles also appear in state and national publications. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Bush will fight to Privatize Social Security

Published in Senior Digest on January 2005

The Bush administration and aging groups are about to battle over the privatization of Social Security.

More than four years ago, the 16-member Presidential Commission divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to send its 165-page final report to the Bush White House. The charge of the commission was to develop a road map to reform the nation’s Social Security program.

With the commission kicking off the Social Security reform debate by releasing this report in December 2001, the federal panel called for three approaches to change the 70-year-old federal program.  All the recommendations involved personal accounts, with a premise that workers’ investments would yield higher retirement benefits.

With President Bush keeping control of the White House and the GOP retaining control of Congress, Social Security is again under attack and the debate is expected to heat up.

According to recent Business Week On-Line article by Richard S. Dunham, Bush will begin to sell the partial privatization of Social Security by launching a “marketing blitz.”

“Advisors say the president, who sees private accounts as essential to his ownership society agenda, is determined to make retirement reform his top domestic priority for 2005,” Dunham wrote.

According to Dunham, Bush’s “three-phase sales plan” started with his Dec. 12 radio address Bush followed by calling for privatization of Social Security at his economic summit on Dec. 16.

Phase Two, a $ 40 million broadcast advertising campaign underwritten by nation’s corporations will tout the economic benefits of allowing workers to put a portion of their payroll taxes into investment accounts and the negative impact of inaction.  Dunham wrote Phase Three would give the public the specifics.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Bush had his work cut out for him to sell the public. Results showed people are skeptical about any changes to Social Security, and that the public believes it is a bad idea to let workers risk their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

Critics are quick to pounce on Bush for his calls for radical changes to Social Security. They charge that the securities industry which heavily supported Republican candidates in the last election, would benefit financially under the president’s plan.

“Wall Street and big business are seated at the conference table-where are the voices of seniors?” asked Barbara Kennelly, president and chief executive officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“This seems like a repeal of the president’s Social  Security Commission, where privatization wasn’t debated. It was a foregone conclusion – and that is a sure path to bad public policy,” she said in a prepared statement released after the White Houe Economic Conference.

Furthermore, Kennelly said that “a carefully orchestrated conference can’t hide the fact that privatizing Social Security may result in cuts in benefits and will dismantle Social Security, while dramatically increasing our nation’s debt.”

Just blocks away at the National Press Club, a diverse coalition of groups held a press conference on the day of Bush’s economic summit. The assembled groups, including the AFL-CIO, NAACP, National Organization for Women (NOW), disability groups, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, announced their strong opposition to Bush plan.

Those groups are part of the Campaign for America’s Future, which intends to mobilize opposition in every congressional district throughout the nation to Save Social Security benefits that would be slashed by the president’s plan.

At the news conference, George J. Kourpias, president of the 3 million plus member Alliance for Retired Americans,” told the crowd that the Social Security system is not broke or in the dire trouble Bush would have American’s believe.

“Let me remind those naysayers who conspired not to save Social Security but to bury it, that Social Security hasn’t missed a paycheck in almost 70  years, Kourpias said.

“With some changes designed to strengthen and secure the program, Social Security is well positioned to keep delivering monthly checks to millions of Americans for decades to come.”

Adds, NOW President Kim Gandy, “Social Security is not in trouble. George Bush is in trouble. More than half of elderly women would live in poverty without the benefits of this guaranteed insurance program. This destructive proposal is effectively economic violence against women- he’s risking our livelihoods to satisfy Wall Street donors and corporate cronies.

AARP President Marie Smith is also weighing in on the privatization issue by placing an open letter to 33 million plus members, on the nonprofit group’s Web site

Smith counters Bush’s statements that Social Security is in danger of going broke. Changes do not have to be drastic, she says. “Creating private accounts would only weaken Social Security and put benefits at risk for future generations.”

Smith estates that a new Social Security system would cost the nation as much as $2 trillion or more in benefit cuts new taxes or more debt.

In Rhode Island, a quick poll of the state’s Democratic U.S. senators and congressmen indicate that they oppose Bush’s retirement policy gamble. (Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee’s position could not be obtained). While each oppose the concept of privatization, the lawmakers are waiting to see the specific legislative proposals that will be introduced.

But even with Bush pushing for a major Social Security overhaul, only a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers can either strengthen the existing Social Security program or scrap it through privatization.

It is crucial for seniors to send a message to Bush and the Republican congressional leadership that it’s time to go back to the drawing board to examine other approaches to strengthen America’s most popular domestic program.

Study Finds Caregiving Becomes Second Job for Many

Published in Pawtucket times on April 12, 2004

The demands of caregiving can seem like a 36-hour workday, Alzheimer’s researchers Nancy Mace and Dr., Peter Rabins tell us.

So true. A new study compiled by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and the AARP that was released last week supports the researcher’s views – that caregiving can consume one’s life, often becoming a second job for many.

According to the 138-page report, entitled, “Caregiving in America,’ more Americans are now holding “second jobs” – functioning as the family caregiver.

The national caregiver survey, which was funded by MetLife Foundation, estimates there are 44.4 million adult caregivers who provide unpaid care to another adult. This care ranges from helping another manage finances, shopping for groceries, doing housework, and assisting others getting in and out of beds or chairs, getting dressed, getting to and from the toilet, bathing, showering and eating.

The study found unpaid care- provided by family caregivers – totaled $257 billion annually. Quite a sum.

Tshe caregiver study, released on April 6, paints a picture of the typical caregiver – 46 years old, married, has some college experience, and provides care to a woman age 50 and older.  The caregiver’s recipient is most likely an older female who is widowed.

The findings are based on a national survey of 6,139 adults, 1,247 of whom are qualified as caregivers. The margin of error for a sample this size is 2.8 percent, at a 95 percent level of confidence.

Almost six in 10, or 59 percent, of these caregivers either work or have worked while providing care, the study found. Moreover, 62 percent have had to make some adjustments to their jobs, from arriving late to work to giving up a job entirely.

Caregiving does not only impact the personal and working life of women, the study says, but it impacts men, too. Almost four in ten (39 percent) caregivers are men, and 60 percent of these individuals are working full-time.

In a written statement announcing the release of this study, the release of this study, Gail Hunt, NAC’s executive director, noted that the study found caregivers need more information and education. “Two-thirds of caregiver respondents says they need help or information on at least one of 14 activities or issues that caregivers commonly face,” she said.

The study’s findings indicate that three in 10 caregivers carry the heaviest load and are most likely to report physical strain, emotional stress and financial hardship as a result of their caregiving responsibilities, compared to caregivers who provide fewer hours of care and perform fewer  demanding tasks.

In addition, the study found caregivers who provide higher levels of care (most likely women) may find their responsibilities complicated by the fact they tend to be older and more likely to say their health is only “fair,” compared to younger caregivers.

Nearly eight in 10 people who need care are age 50 or older (79 percent), the study found. Caregivers say these older care recipients are afflicted with age-related health problems (15 percent), specifically heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s or other mental confusion ailments.

But younger recipients (ages 18-49) of caregiving often face problems of mental illness and depression (23 percent), the study added.

Caregiving may consume a person’s later years.

The study found the average length of caregiving provided is 4.3 years; however, three in 10 caregivers report providing care for more than five years.

Older caregivers (ages 50 and older), who tend to be caring for their mothers and grandmothers, are among the most likely to have provided care for 20 years or more. The survey found 17 percent of caregivers between the ages of 50-64 years and 18 percent of those over 65 have been providing care for more than a decade.

“I think people who are dealing with caregiving are unaware that many of their coworkers are dealing with the same thing,” AARP Board Member Jennie Chin Hansen claimed in the written statement. “This report shows just how common this  is,” she says.

Like the caregiver respondents of NAC/AARP’s caregiver study, tens of thousands of Ocean State caregivers juggle the demands of taking care of an older relative while taking care of their family and working a job. The study’s findings are just another reason why Gov. Doanld Carcieri and state lawmakers must adequately fund the Department of Elderly Affair’s (DEA) copay program and respite programs.

DEA’s co-pay program assists 1,500 frail seniors who do not qualify for the state’s Medicaid program, to partially pay for the services or certified nursing assistants (CNAs) to assist with bathing, meals, shopping, laundry and light housekeeping. In addition, DEA’s co-pay program also provides subsidies for adult day care.

Last October, DEA’s freeze on new admissions to its co-pay program left more than 200 frail seniors  on a waiting list for home and community-based services. Although Carcieri has increased funding for DEA’s co-pay program by $ 200,000 in his 2005 budget, senior groups say this amount is still not enough. The governor’s increase in his budget is estimated to only serve 60 to 80 out of the 200 seniors currently on this waiting list.

DEA’s freeze on new admissions to its respite program, which enables caregivers to take a break from the grueling demands of taking care of frail family members, may adversely impact the health and wellbeing of caregivers who can’t take advantage of this program.

The freeze placed on the respite care program will continue for the rest of this fiscal year- nobody is sure how long the freeze for this initiative will last.

In years to come, we will see a growing number of Rhode Islanders  taking on the role of unpaid caregivers (a second job) to keep a frail family member at home. Lack of access to community-based services and to caregivers oftentimes will lead to placement in  a costly nursing home.

From a budgetary stance, Carcieri and state lawmakers may well want to adequately fund DEA’s co-pay and respite program because of the ultimate cost savings to the state budget. On the other hand, supporting a policy that assists caregivers to keep seniors independent and in their homes is simply the right thing to do.