PSARA members are invited to participate with the broader community at the Seattle Care Congress from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, February 11, at the Greenwood Community Senior Center, 525 N. 85th Street in Seattle. Lunch will be provided.
Our country and region are facing a severe and growing “care gap.” The number of persons needing long-term care services is expected to reach 27 million by 2050, while the current direct care workforce is only 3 million. PSARA has joined a national campaign to address this ticking time bomb. No one wants to age in an institution if it is possible to receive the necessary care in one’s own home.
Today individuals and families across the country are struggling to find dependable, affordable quality care that meets the full range of their needs. That goal will not be achieved until the direct care workforce is protected by labor laws that assure them they can achieve a decent living for themselves and their families.
Today, nearly half the direct care workforce earns less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, there are neither uniform training standards nor a meaningful career ladder to provide opportunities for advancement.
Moreover, many direct care givers are immigrants who lack documentation. Without a pathway to citizenship, these care givers are pushed into the underground economy, where they live in constant fear of deportation.
The Caring Across Generations campaign is based on the principle that all members of our society deserve a dignified quality of life and dignified quality jobs. To achieve that goal, we must:
• Create sufficient jobs to meet the growing demand for direct care.
• Transform the quality of today’s direct care jobs by ensuring fair wages, access to health insurance, and protection of health and safety.
• Create a rewarding career path and linguistically and culturally relevant training programs for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Create training and certification programs that provide a path to legal status and citizenship for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Support individuals and families who hire direct care workers by providing access to Medicaid/Medicare and by creating tax credits to assist with the costs of direct care.
• Support individuals and families who are providing unpaid kin care by establishing Social Security care-giving credits, paid family leave, and childcare subsidies.
This multi-year national campaign recognizes that caring for the aging and for people with disabilities is a national responsibility. Please join us on February 11 as we launch this campaign in the Puget Sound region.
-- Robby Stern
Showing posts with label long-term care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label long-term care. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Saturday, May 15, 2010
CLASS Act
A program to help the great majority of working Americans who have no long-term care insurance is an under-reported component of the new health care law.
Called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act, the legislation translates into law a concept the late Senator Edward Kennedy and his staff had been working on since 2003. We are indebted to The New York Times for an authoritative explanation of the new program, based on The Times’ discussions with four experts on long-term care issues.
The CLASS Act is not the all-embracing long-term care social insurance program the nation needs. But it breaks significant new ground and provides a structure that can be expanded and strengthened in the years ahead.
Enrollment in the new program is expected to begin in 2013. Participation is voluntary and open to any working person who earns enough each year to pay Social Security taxes. Those who sign up must pay premiums for a vesting period of five years to qualify for benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the average monthly premium will be about $123 (less for younger enrollees, more for older ones).
CLASS is an “opt out” program. That means that if the employer participates, the worker is automatically enrolled unless the worker “opts out.” The enrolled worker becomes eligible for a daily benefit estimated at $75 if he or she needs help, either with two to three “activities of daily living,” or because of cognitive impairment. “Activities of daily living” include eating, bathing, dressing, using the toilet, continence care, and transferring from bed to chair or wheelchair.
Once a person qualifies, the daily benefit continues for as long as it is needed. This could mean many years of payments. About 40% of those currently receiving long-term care are young people who have had accidents or who have developed chronic illnesses.
The CLASS Act is not intended to pay the full cost of 24-hour care or a nursing home. But many persons with disabilities can stay out of nursing homes, or delay admission to one, with the act’s moderate levels of assistance supplementing family care.
Projections indicate that two-thirds of older Americans will sooner or later need long-term care. For all its limitations, the CLASS Act will give working people – those who have the foresight to enroll – an affordable way to avoid institutional care entirely, or at the very least, to ease its economic burden.
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Called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act, the legislation translates into law a concept the late Senator Edward Kennedy and his staff had been working on since 2003. We are indebted to The New York Times for an authoritative explanation of the new program, based on The Times’ discussions with four experts on long-term care issues.
The CLASS Act is not the all-embracing long-term care social insurance program the nation needs. But it breaks significant new ground and provides a structure that can be expanded and strengthened in the years ahead.
Enrollment in the new program is expected to begin in 2013. Participation is voluntary and open to any working person who earns enough each year to pay Social Security taxes. Those who sign up must pay premiums for a vesting period of five years to qualify for benefits. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the average monthly premium will be about $123 (less for younger enrollees, more for older ones).
CLASS is an “opt out” program. That means that if the employer participates, the worker is automatically enrolled unless the worker “opts out.” The enrolled worker becomes eligible for a daily benefit estimated at $75 if he or she needs help, either with two to three “activities of daily living,” or because of cognitive impairment. “Activities of daily living” include eating, bathing, dressing, using the toilet, continence care, and transferring from bed to chair or wheelchair.
Once a person qualifies, the daily benefit continues for as long as it is needed. This could mean many years of payments. About 40% of those currently receiving long-term care are young people who have had accidents or who have developed chronic illnesses.
The CLASS Act is not intended to pay the full cost of 24-hour care or a nursing home. But many persons with disabilities can stay out of nursing homes, or delay admission to one, with the act’s moderate levels of assistance supplementing family care.
Projections indicate that two-thirds of older Americans will sooner or later need long-term care. For all its limitations, the CLASS Act will give working people – those who have the foresight to enroll – an affordable way to avoid institutional care entirely, or at the very least, to ease its economic burden.
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