seniors

30Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Medicaid Program Expands Funding For Seniors And People With Disabilities

The Biden administration recently announced approximately $25 million in grants to expand a Medicaid program that has allowed more than 90,000 disabled people and seniors to move out of institutional settings like nursing homes and back into their communities. Money Follows the Person is a demonstration program designed to support states in expanding their home care services. Demonstration programs are used to test new and innovative policies in the states. The nearly $25 million announced August 22 will support early planning for MFP in Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, American Samoa and Puerto Rico, bringing the total to 41 states and territories offering the program. Currently, nursing home care is a Medicaid entitlement, meaning states are required to provide it to seniors and peopl...

2.4 Million US Seniors Get Enough To Eat While Meals On Wheels Volunteers Help Staving Off Loneliness

More than 2.4 million older adults are supported each year by Meals on Wheels, a program through which seniors and people with disabilities receive healthy and tasty meals for free from a network of volunteers. These efforts are usually organized through local senior centers and other community organizations across the U.S. that encourage the people who receive meals to make voluntary donations to cover at least part of the cost if that’s within their means. CC BY-NC-ND Services like this nonprofit meal delivery program, for which eligibility begins at age 60, are becoming more important than ever before. About 5.3 million people 60 and up, 7.3% of all Americans in that age group, experienced food insecurity in 2018 – meaning that their households couldn’t acquire adequate food bec...

Economic hardship from COVID-19 will hit minority seniors the most

For Americans 60 and older, COVID-19 is widespread and deadly. Its economic impact could also be devastating. With a recession fast developing, much of the attention on the downturn focuses on working-age adults, but many older Americans – with less time to make up for financial losses – will suffer the most. I am a clinical professor of gerontology. My co-author is a research fellow in gerontology. We believe that recent history, specifically the Great Recession of 2008-09, will demonstrate what’s at stake. In a series of research briefs using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we analyzed the financial status of Americans 60 and older before and after that recession. We reviewed the data from a wide variety of demographic groups: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, and H...