Over 100 leaders from the health care industry, senior organizations, government, and academia discussed the future of long-term care in the United States with Capitol Hill policymakers and staff at the fourth National Long-Term Care Symposium, sponsored by Genworth Financial, on September 14.
“The broad spectrum of interests represented at the symposium demonstrates the growing attention being paid to long-term care, particularly the direct-care workers and family members who together provide the vast majority of services to elders and people with disabilities,” said PHI President Steven Dawson.
Howard Gleckman, author of Caring for Our Parents and a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, moderated the two-panel forum, during which participants discussed the challenges that family and paid caregivers face and how the policies under consideration in Congress could address these needs.
Describing the state of home health care in the U.S., Gleckman noted that it is “more dangerous to be a home health aide than it is to be a coal miner.”
Ancil Alexander, a home care worker with Cooperative Home Care Associates in New York, spoke about the challenges of her job (see video below), and, at one point, asked the audience, “How can you be a home care giver — taking care of sick people — when we ourselves don’t have coverage?”
Low Wages Cited
The strain that many paid home care workers experience results from their low wages. According to a Genworth 2008 white paper, A Workforce to Care for our Aging (pdf), 19 percent of home care aides and 16 percent of nursing home aides are compensated at a level insufficient for them to rise above the poverty line.
Panelist Suzanne Mintz, president and co-founder of the National Family Caregivers Association, said:
The wellbeing of family caregivers and direct-care workers are inextricably tied together. As the wages of the latter go up, it makes it that much harder for family caregivers to purchase the services they need. The solution to this ironic situation is that easing the financial strain on family caregivers must go hand in hand with raising the wages of direct-care workers.
Gleckman said it is becoming critical that society acknowledge and address the stresses being placed on caregivers, most of whom have no formal training in providing care. Eighty percent of long-term caregiving in the U.S. is done by informal caregivers, often family members or close friends who receive no financial compensation. Genworth reports that a typical working family caregiver loses approximately $110 per day in wages and health benefits due to caregiving responsibilities.
The second panel, entitled “Policy Options for Family and Paid Long-Term Caregivers,” featured staff from the the Senate Committee on Health, Education, and Pensions, and from the offices of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY).
Nine organizations assisted Genworth Financial in organizing the symposium, including PHI, AARP, Alzheimer’s Association, American Health Care Association, American Seniors Housing Association, Foundation for the Future of Aging, National Alliance for Caregiving, National Family Caregivers Association, and the SCAN Foundation.
