For the 86 percent of Americans who say they want to die at home, hospice programs make that desire increasingly possible. However, people often wait too long before seeking hospice care. In the United States, the average length of hospice…
Aging Responsibly and with Purpose Incredibly, the old will soon outnumber the young. According to projections just released by the Census Bureau, the population of Americans 65 and older will exceed the number of children in 2035 for the first…
More than 1.4 million Americans live in nursing homes; two-thirds of whom are primarily covered by Medicare and Medicaid. They are our frail elderly, disabled, medically compromised, and cognitively impaired who are at risk because they cannot care for themselves.…
Who decides the definition of “affordable” for individuals and families? Just because the ACA is named the “Affordable Care Act” doesn’t mean that health insurance is within reach for millions of Americans. A spokesman for the Department of Health and…
What has happened to our health care system? Physicians are now called “providers” and patients are “consumers.” Primary care doctors are buried with insurance paper work, checking the appropriate boxes, and using the right billing codes. Add to that, they…
Though every state in this nation struggles with escalating and unmanageable healthcare costs, only Oregon has established a rationing policy for the care needs of those on Medicaid. Oregon’s overt rationing plan has suffered the bumps and bruises of being…
It has been a year since waiting lists at VA hospitals made international headlines, as our American veterans struggled to access timely health care. In the months since, The Associated Press has found that the number of medical appointments delayed…
U.S. healthcare spending is poised to grow at an average of 5.7 percent annually over the next decade, stretching government budgets with an upswing in the economy, an aging population and expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act. By 2023,…