Granny Snatching: Increasing cases, increasing costs

In the United States an estimated 5.4 million people have Alzheimer’s disease, and a new case develops every 69 seconds – but that number will skyrocket to 16 million by 2050 with a new case reported every 33 seconds, according to a just-released report from the Alzheimer’s Association.

Last year, the report adds, some 14.9 million family members and friends provided 17 billion hours of unpaid care to those with Alzheimer’s and other dementias – valued at $202.6 billion. (Frankly, I think that number – the amount of hours spent caring for Alzheimer’s patients, is way, way too low. It comes out to about a half-hour a day, and no one who cares for an elderly person does so in a mere half-hour a day. That’s not care, that’s a quick visit.)

You can check the report here: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_facts_and_figures.asp

Nonetheless, these numbers should be alarming for the Connecticut Legislature as it reviews how to cope with burgeoning costs and dwindling revenues. I have written about this previously but since we are in the midst of the Legislative session, it bears repeating … and hopefully someone will get the message. Imagine what the bill to Medicaid would be if family and friends on a mass scale just decided to put all those Alzheimer’s patients into a nursing home.

In Connecticut, approximately 70,000 people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, out of more than 365,000 classified as elderly. Meanwhile, more than 19,000 elderly residents are being cared for in nursing homes, on Medicaid, and another 10,000 are in nursing homes paying the bill themselves or through insurance.

The report isn’t clear on how many elderly nursing home patients in Connecticut have Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia, but what is clear is that it already costs about $80,000 per Medicaid patient per year. That number is higher for Alzheimer’s patients.

Connecticut’s 365,000 elderly residents are expected to be joined by another 140,000 in the next 14 years totaling more than a half-million by 2025. Even if only 15 percent of that number winds up in a nursing home on Medicaid – at today’s prices – it will cost an extra 1.5 billion dollars each and every year. And don’t expect the cost of nursing home care to be stable.

The population of the United States is aging because the Baby Boomer generation, those who were borne after the end of World War II to the middle of the 1960’s – usually defined as ending in 1964 – are now reaching their mid-60s, generally defined as retirement age. They will live longer than previous generations, and have more assets at hand, but they also will cost an unprecedented amount in taxpayer dollars for health care if they don’t have someone looking out for them in a non-nursing home setting.

There are many ways to eliminate or reduce the need for nursing home care including adult day care, home care, and community based care. Organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association are providing far more to the general welfare than just their support for research into the cause and possible cure of Alzheimer’s.

By helping elderly citizens stay in their own homes, or in the homes of friends and family, they are significantly reducing the impact on taxpayers at both the state and federal levels. Medicaid costs are already out of control, the program is variously described as threatened or on the verge of bankruptcy, yet the numbers of elderly who will need Medicaid support are escalating daily.

During legislative hearings on several bills before the Committee on Aging last month, I was surprised to learn how far tax dollars can go if they are directed to community-based or home-based health care, rather than nursing home care. So much money is involved it is difficult to understand why some bureaucrats seem to ignore the more cost-effective programs, and continue to pour billions of dollars into the bottomless pit of nursing home care.

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Here are a few more statistics from the report that our legislators may want to consider:

• 61 percent of people providing unpaid care for Alzheimer’s and dementia report high to very high emotional stress, and 43 percent report high to very high physical stress.

• 44 percent of caregivers work full-time or part-time. Among them, 61 percent of women and 70 percent of men said they miss work to attend to their home-care responsibilities.

So what that means is there is a huge economic burden, in addition to the burden on the caregivers’ health, to those who care enough to provide home and sustenance to their friends and relatives, without the state and federal government increasing their burden through unnecessary, crushing taxes!

I know we’d all like to think that taking care of a parent or elderly acquaintance is about heart and soul, but frankly, sooner or later, one way or another, money gets into the mix too. When it does we will be doing ourselves and our future a big favor if we apply some fiscal common sense now, because later will be too late.