What happens when a state has an issue with their public health insurance policies? Kansas is a good example of this right now as it was just announced that their Medicare program is facing over $373 million in nursing home funding over the next ten years. Any way you cut it, this is a huge number, and would ultimately eliminate many people from having the senior care coverage that they need.
According to the AARP, one year of a stay in a nursing home in Kansas is priced at $54,020. Compare this to the $37,440 that is estimated in payment for the same amount of time for an in-home caregiver. This is a big difference in stat costs–almost $17,000 per year–and if the state were to go through and find people that would be better serviced with in-home care rather than a nursing home stay, there is a good chance that they could reduce costs by millions of dollars almost instantly. Just applying this to 100 people would eliminate over $1 million, and over the course of ten years, suddenly that nine digit number becomes a lot more manageable.
As you know, there is a huge push in our society to go with a nursing home first and foremost rather than looking for the most appropriate type of care for the needs of our elderly relatives. Nursing home is not always the best choice for everyone, and it should be used more as a last resort than the first choice. Unfortunately, this is exactly what a lot of insurance companies have forced people to do in the past, and Medicare is one of them. With Kansas now facing big budgetary cuts, hopefully they will learn from this and move forward with making high quality senior care become more affordable for those that rely on Medicare, but can’t afford a lot of extras out of pocket.
The issues in Kansas are still under proposal, of course, and it looks like the first people that would be affected are not necessarily the elderly, but rather those that work in nursing homes as staff members. This is still troublesome, of course, and the repercussions would ultimately affect those that reside in the nursing homes as these institutions become increasingly understaffed and inadequate to meet the needs of every single person there. If it can be avoided, it’s something that should be, and it seems like making in-home care more accessible to all that would benefit from it is a great place to start. It would create more jobs, help people stay in their homes, and reduce state costs at the same time. It would be just a mall step in a smaller state, but it would indicate to the rest of the country that such a change was beneficial to not just the senior citizens in need of assistance, but to the state governments themselves as their costs would be reduced substantially. After all, Kansas is not the only state being affected here as Medicare is a national program and cuts are being made across the board. This is just the first state to come under focus.
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