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Federally-Funded Long-Term Care a Disaster?
Following are some of the reasons America’s long-term care service delivery and financing system is causing deep concern:
- Seven major nursing facility chains have declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy
- Between 10-20% of all nursing home beds in the country are in bankrupt facilities today
- Hundreds of home health agencies have gone under financially
- Many new assisted living facilities are filling far more slowly than anticipated
- Long-term care stock prices are down
- New capitalization by debt or equity is almost non-existent for publicly held long-term care companies
- Caregivers are in desperately short supply, whether they are low-wage nurses’ aides in long-term care facilities or unpaid friends and family in private homes.
What does that mean? It means that in the long term, federally-funded programs may not always provide a free-ride for long-term nursing care. In the short term, it means you can expect inferior nursing care in a long- term care system that is in serious financial trouble.
Currently, our healthcare system is based on acute-care with a dependency on government programs. We bend the needs of the chronically ill to meet the needs of the system. Many healthcare professionals see long-term care as the most important social issue today and look to changes in the near future where we move from system supports to self-supports.
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