Governor Says AARP Survey Backs Up His Long-Term Care Plan

The AARP says 70% of Tennesseans would support more funding to help people stay in their own homes as they grow older. The organization, representing senior citizens and retirees, published the survey results today.

Governor Phil Bredesen says it backs up what he’s hearing from Tennesseans of all ages – even young people who aren’t worried about themselves but about parents and grandparents who might have to go to nursing homes.

Last week Bredesen proposed a new long-term care plan for in-home services. He says the changes will affect the industry and will likely face resistance.

“The nursing home industry is a big industry. I mean, the state pays one-point-two billion dollars to nursing homes for services every year, and of course the private sector pays a great deal , a great deal in addition to that. And anytime you make changes in something that has the kind of economics behind it that that does, of course there are going to be concerns, and not everyone is in agreement with it, but this is the right way to go, it’s the right thing to do.”

The nursing home industry maintains there are few patients living in its facilities who could function in their own home, but Bredesen says a start toward more in-home services is still a good idea.

WEB EXTRA

Highlights from the AARP survey

88%of respondents said it is “very important” or “extremely important” to have long-term care services that would enable them or their family members to stay at home as long as possible.

(In 2006, a “more restrictive sampling” of voters 35 and older showed 84% with similar response.)

72% said they favored increasing funds for services to allow people to live longer in their homes.

(In 2006, that response was 58 percent.)

57% said they were worried about being able to receive long-term care in a setting of their choice.

(In 2006, that response was 46 percent.)

Methodology:

The survey was of self-identified, registered likely voters 18 and over, conducted Feb.19-Feb. 23, 2008.

It surveyed 811 registered, likely voters. AARP said the sampling error is plus-or-minus 3.5%.

AARP staked out these ideas as “facts about long-term care in Tennessee,” essentially talking points to be used in the political debate about changing funding for these services.

• “Tennessee continues to rank last in the nation in the percentage of federal long-term care dollars spent on home- and community-based care….”

• Nearly 99 percent of $953 million in Medicaid dollars spent on long-term care in Tennessee went to nursing homes in fiscal 2006 (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)

• Only 1.1 percent of that, $10.8 million, with to home and community-based services (again according to CMS data[ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is abbreviated ‘CMS’]

• Only 4 percent of Tennesseans polled said they would prefer to be in a nursing home.

The flavor of the argument to come is apparent in this, direct from the AARP news release:

In Tennessee, care in a nursing home costs about $66,000 a year, while two hours of daily care in the home costs about $14,000 a year, according to surveys by Metlife Mature Market Institute.

Despite that, nearly 99 percent of almost $1 billion in federal funding for long-term care services goes to nursing homes (some $943 million), with only $10.8 million spent on home and community-based services such as caregiver respite and delivered meals, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.