The Social Security cash crunch Congress can’t ignore, By Jeanne Sahadi, June 17, 2014, CNN Money: “It’s highly unlikely that Congress will reform Social Security any time soon. But there is a near-term cash crunch in one part of Social Security that lawmakers must resolve in the next year or two. The trust fund for Social Security disability benefits, which is separate from the fund for retirement benefits, is on track to be insolvent — most likely by the end of 2016 but no later than 2017. So unless Congress acts to replenish the fund beforehand, the program will only be able to pay an estimated 80% of promised benefits to 8.8 million disabled workers, plus the benefits paid to their spouses and dependents if the disabled worker was the primary breadwinner. . .”
Tag: Disability
Medicaid and Medicare Dual Eligibles – California
Low-income California seniors to move into new managed care plan, By Anna Gorman, March 27, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “In a major shift triggered by the national healthcare law, nearly half a million low-income California seniors and disabled patients will begin moving into a new managed care program this fall. The patients, who receive both Medi-Cal and Medicare, are among the most costly in the state. Officials believe that the program, Cal MediConnect, will reduce spending and improve care by shifting the patients out of a fragmented system and into one that is more coordinated. The state and the federal government signed an agreement Wednesday officially establishing a test program for the patients, known as dual eligibles…”
Medicaid and Long-Term Care
With Medicaid, long-term care of elderly looms as a rising cost, By Nina Bernstein, September 6, 2012, New York Times: “Medicaid has long conjured up images of inner-city clinics jammed with poor families. Its far less-visible role is as the only safety net for millions of middle-class people whose needs for long-term care, at home or in a nursing home, outlast their resources. With baby boomers and their parents living longer than ever, few families can count on their own money to go the distance. So while Medicare has drawn more attention in the election campaign, seniors and their families may have even more at stake in the future of Medicaid changes – those proposed, and others already under way. Though former President Bill Clinton overstated in his convention speech on Wednesday how much Medicaid spends on the elderly in nursing homes – they account for well under a third, not nearly two-thirds, of spending – Medicaid spends more than five times as much on each senior in long-term care as it does on each poor child, and even more per person on the disabled in long-term care…”