Health and Disability

Senators could vote as early as this week on a bill to delay seven Medicaid regulations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) late last week granted fast-track status to the legislation (H.R. 5613).

As a result of Reid's move, the legislation bypassed the Senate Finance Committee and heads straight to the Senate. The House last week passed the bill by a strong majority – enough to override a potential presidential veto. The Bush administration would be willing work with lawmakers on some of the rules, according to Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Congressmen and governors have sharply criticized the rules because of their expected negative impact on Medicaid funding to states. The rules would place limits on Medicaid funding to government-owned nursing homes and hospitals, among other restrictions. The bill would delay the regulations, many of which are scheduled to take effect in coming weeks, until April 1, 2009.

“It is clear that a change in culture is needed - that both health care workers and health care organizations need to change the way they think about direct-care workers and, in particular, that the direct-care workers need to be seen as a vital part of the health care team,” says Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences.

The report, from the IOM’s Committee on the Future Health Care Workforce for Older Americans, also calls for concrete improvements in the quality of direct-care jobs. It advocates a three-pronged approach:

• More, and more effective, education and training;
• Increased wages and benefits; and
• Improvements to the work environment, such as empowerment strategies and culture change.

When the IOM talks, Congress generally listens. Past IOM reports have led to major improvements in our health care system - like the Nursing Home Reform Act of OBRA 1987, which grew out of an IOM report on long-term care. The current report is focused on how we can prepare for the coming baby boomer “age wave” by ensuring that the nation has an adequate and capable geriatric care workforce.

CMS on Thursday added to the Nursing Home Compare Web site a searchable database with the names of nursing homes that rank in the lowest 5% to 10% in quality based on state inspection results, the Wall Street Journal reports. CMS first released the information in the database as a list of Special Focus Facilities that includes about 130 of the 16,000 nursing homes in the U.S. In addition to the database, the Web site, which CMS updates monthly, includes summarized information from state inspections and data that nursing homes must submit to regulators about their residents.

The House Wednesday approved by a veto-proof margin a bill that would delay the implementation of seven onerous Medicaid regulations until April 1, 2009. <o:p></o:p>

Lawmakers approved by a vote of 349-62 Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 (H.R. 5613). The legislation would place a moratorium on pending regulations that, among other consequences, restrict the use of the allowable provider tax and curtail Medicaid funding to government-funded skilled nursing facilities and other healthcare facilities. One rule that limits provider taxes was scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday. The Bush administration on Tuesday has threatened to veto the legislation, which now moves to the Senate.

Video too!!

Chairman Kohl, Ranking Member Smith and members of the Committee: I appreciate the invitation to testify before you today and am honored to be here.

You have chosen a subject that is increasingly critical to our quality of life—not only for older Americans but for family members who care for them. I look forward to learning from the work of the Committee as it continues to examine this issue. The experience of the distinguished professionals on your panel today will be important as well.

I respond to your invitation today as a member of a family whose eyes were opened by personal experience—and to share what we have been learning at the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

The Elder Justice Act (HR 1783) received a heap of accolades from senior care advocates and industry representatives at a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday.

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Testimony from AARP and Robert Blancato, national coordinator of the Elder Justice Coalition, highlighted the care community's support of the bill, which was introduced last year by Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL).

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Among the more than 556,000 confirmed cases of elder abuse recorded in 2004, 20,000 of those occurred in a nursing home or long-term care facility, said Blancato, speaking to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. In its submitted testimony, AARP echoed Blancato's sentiments of concern and praised the legislation.

Developed in partnership with the Alliance for Aging Research, these four very-short films aim to increase understanding of Alzheimer's disease. The creators of the films call them"pocket" films because of their brevity and portability; they are designed to be viewed anywhere at anytime: a doctor's office, a Congressional hallway, a family living room.

The films are designed to be downloaded to iTunes, or to your desktop.

http://www.aboutalz.org/

As his wheelchair is pushed through the doors of the nursing home, Michael (Gordie Arsenault) wipes a tear from his eye.

The actor is portraying a man with an intellectual disability who has had an accident.

Michael has fallen off a stepladder and broken his leg.

But that’s not what hurts him the most. Michael has a broken heart. Ever since the accident happened, his sister has wanted him out of her home. She is going to have a baby and can’t take care of him anymore.

The Guardian photo

That is why he is moving into a long-term care facility.

And he’s not happy about it.

“Bingo and no beer, boy this place is going to be hard on the head. The only thing left is solitaire,” says Michael as he listens to the orderly, Ralph (Norman Pickering), listing off house rules.

It’s a scene from a new play by Vian Emery. From Pillar to Post will be performed by the People First Theatre Troupe at The Guild in Charlottetown on April 24.

The play deals with what often happens to persons with intellectual disabilities, following an accident or the death of a parent, when they are placed into long-term care facilities because there’s nowhere else for them to go.