Does This Make Sense or Does It Not?

An excellent article appeared in Warren Wolfe’s column of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It is entitled: Elder-carehurdle criticized. I have posted it in my Archive. Click on the title to read it which I recommend you do.

The article involves reaction to a law going into effect October 1^st in Minnesota. In the article it notes the heavy lobby opposed to the plan to go into force by the Assisted Living Lobby.

Thousands of frail Minnesotans who plan to move into assisted living facilities will have to talk with a telephone counselor first under a state law that takes effect Oct. 1.

The counseling is designed to help older people and their families make better -- and less costly -- long-term care choices. It also is projected to save taxpayers $3.8 million in the next two years because public programs such as Medicaid pick up much of the bill for long-term care.

But it has kicked up a fuss among the state's 1,701 assisted living operators, who could lose customers.

They are deeply troubled by the mandate and the obvious counter balance it will have to their assisted living sales campaign.

"This is government overreach," said Eric Schubert, vice president for public affairs at Ecumen, among the state's largest providers of nonprofit senior housing, with 37 assisted living facilities serving 2,000 residents.

"People do need good information about long-term care options, but don't make it mandatory counseling just when they're decided to move. It's not effective and it's ageist," he said.

"Older people can buy a house or move to Arizona, but now they need counseling to move into assisted living?"

It is no wonder the homes object. It threatens to cut into their lucrative profits! The objector quoted sets out a reason that is not even relevant to the purpose of the legislation. Anyone in the market to buy a house or move to Arizona assumes some competency. A person in such a situation as susceptible to a sales pitch to move into an assisted living facility is assumed to have some limitations or incompetency to have put assisted living on his/her agenda. Considering the confiscatory cost of it such a person is at risk for the draining of their estate down to poverty level when they qualify for Medicaid and then become the burden of government.

If there is no real need to be in an assisted living home then it is not in their interest nor the interest of everyone else who ultimately foot the bill through Medicaid when they go in.

Ecumen, the employer of their spokesman making the forgoing statement is a superior and an innovative chain of assisted living and nursing homes. They are doing a credible program that makes every penny spent for them well worth it.

But, what is their cost? It is not as little as the $37.000 Annual Average. It is very likely much more. This cost, the average, is a little over $3,000 a month which is expensive enough. In the metro area the cost, all things added in, reaches an average of $60,000 annually or $5,000 per month.

We need to take some control of this to take the enormous profit out of For Profit, privately owned assisted living enterprises.  This is one way for the government to step in. The other way is for the rest of us to step in because ultimately it is out of our pocket.