“Who should pay for older adults’ care? Caregivers answer differently,” University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation
“When it comes to opinions about paying for, and getting access to, care for older adults, direct experience appears to matter a lot, a new University of Michigan study finds. People aged 50 and over who serve as unpaid family caregivers for adults over 65 are more likely than non-caregivers to say that the government should have primary responsibility for paying for the care of older Americans, at 51% vs. 43%. Non-caregivers were more likely to say that families, or older adults themselves, should have primary responsibility for costs. More than half of all people aged 50 and over say they are very concerned about the cost of long-term care for older adults, including home care, assisted living and nursing home care. But there were differences by caregiver status here, too. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of caregivers said they are very concerned about long-term care costs, compared with 54% of non-caregivers. And when it came to access to quality long-term care, 50% of caregivers said they’re very concerned, compared with 36% of non-caregivers. The new paper, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society by a team from the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, is based on data from the National Poll on Healthy Aging. The poll of people aged 50 and over, taken in 2024, showed that just under 18% were providing care to a person over 65.”
LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:
More evidence for what we’ve always known: people touched by long-term care are more concerned about it. And they tend to want government, i.e. someone else, to provide and pay for it. To make sense of what ails LTC, read the Paragon Health Institute’s “Long-Term Care: The Problem” and “Long-Term Care: The Solution” and watch this “virtual LTC event” featuring age wave visionary Ken Dychtwald and leading LTC researchers. To find ample private funds for LTC, check out “Medicaid’s $100+ Billion Leak.” For what not to do, see “Medi-Cal-amity: California’s Reckless Expansion of Medicaid Long-Term Care to the Affluent.” Much more on long-term care here.