End of The Semester

This semester has exposed me to the topic of interest groups. When we were originally given the assignment I chose the topic of Elder Care i chose it because my grandma had just suffered a major stroke and I wanted to look into what kind of care she would be able to get in addition to that of the family support. Since that time my grandma has passed away but that experience of watching what was going on with her opened my eyes to Elder Care even more. The most disappointing part of this assignment was the lack of historical polls which made writing my issue history paper difficult. All in all this semester has been very interesting and packed full of information.

Warning Signs

This is a video about the warning signs to look for when your elderly loved one may need to start being assisted.

Dr. Bill Thomas on Elder Care

This Harvard graduated doctor has done research on what happens to the elderly. This is a video with speeches of his and his findings.

News Report on Assisted Living

This is a video about assisted living centers for people that just need a little bit of help.

Elder Care Video

This a video of a woman explaining what she feels is wrong with the Elder Care system

Cost of hiring an Elder care expert

The new York Times wrote an article September 25th 2009 highlighting the cost of what is to take care of some one who is needing skilled care. In this article they describe the life of a woman that is suffering from Alzheimer's and that will be needing assisted care because her husband is also in his mid 80's. The costs for just the consultation to figure out what you need to concentrate on and what solutions may exist will set cost around $200. Then you move on to the Assessment where the care manager with the patient, speak with family members and doctors, and assess the living arrangement to more clearly understand the patients situation and challenges. That will cost between $500-$1,200. Then there is the issue of continuing care which could range from having nurses live with you or having the patient live in a facility. Which will run either a hourly cost or will be a flat monthly fee. Elder care is not cheap and is only going to be getting more expensive with the number of people that will be reaching the ages at which they need skilled care.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/health/26patient.html

National Center on Women and Aging 2002 National Poll Women 50+

In 2002 National Center on Women and Aging conducted a survey and contained questions pertaining to Elder care. The first question asked how they would rank certain things they wish would be changed and 86.6% of them answered that they would like to see Improvements in the availability & affordability of child and elder care. Of those surveyed 14.9% said that affording good child and elder care is one of the most important things faced by woman as a whole. While only 7.3% of woman 50+ feel that Affording good child and elder care is important. This poll demonstrates how opinions have changed in just 7 years.



http://iasp.brandeis.edu/womenandaging/poll_topline.pdf

Generation X and Elder Care

This poll is about the member of Generation X and their knowledge of what long term care would mean for them.

Nearly 60 percent [of Generation X respondents] mistakenly believe their current policies provide coverage or they do not know if they are already covered. Long-term care insurance provides coverage for long-term care.

In order to finance their long-term care, 36 percent say they would rely on government assistance, such as Medicaid, to provide for long-term care. While Medicaid often provides coverage for long-term care services to qualifying low-income Americans, many people have to spend down their savings to the point of poverty in order to quality for this assistance. Others say they would use their retirement savings (26 percent), sell their assets (24 percent), rely on other insurance products (22 percent), or rely on family and friends (13 percent).

This poll shows that the people of Generation X do not understand what it means to receive assistance because they in order to receive it they would have to reduce their life to the poverty line. This poll was also interesting because it shows a perspective other than that of the Baby Boomers.

http://genxfinance.com/2009/04/16/poll-generation-x-feels-unprepared-for-long-term-care-costs-are-you-prepared/

Another Blog about Elder Care

This person has been documenting their care for an aunt suffering from Alzheimer's. In this blog there is a a pseudo poll which we have talked about in class. There are only three options and the only way some one would take the poll is if they visited the site making it unscientific.

http://www.squidoo.com/theeldercarestruggle

Sample Poll

While searching for things pertaining to the topic of elder care I came across this poll. It is a sample poll that could be conducted, and I believe it is being conducted by Gallup. It is sponsored by USA TODAY and ABC NEWS POLL. The poll is 41 questions long and is targeting 550 Baby Boomers. It was also conducted by phone. This might actually be the poll that I first reported on in my first blog posting. This poll demonstrates the the stuff we have talked about in class like the sample population and the method as to how the poll was conducted.

http://brain.gallup.com/documents/questionnaire.aspx?STUDY=P0705018

Texas and Elder Care

This poll is from June of 2008, before our very publicized health care debate in the United States. This poll asked the question as to wether or not back a local legislator if they oppose a medicaid rate boost the results were the following:

57% of Texas voters are less likely to support their local state legislator if they opposed boosting seniors' Medicaid rates, 22% are more likely to do so. 12% say it makes no difference; 9% were unsure or refused. The Baselice Associates poll of 801 registered Texas voters was conducted 4/30-5/4, and has an error margin of +/- 3.5%.

At the time this poll was conducted the results make a lot of sense because while Texas is a very conservative state they do care heavily for their elders.

ElderCare website

The government has a website for Elder care. I found it very informative. By clicking on the resources tab on the top of the website I was able to go to a wide variety of facts some ranging from the warning signs of dementia to hospice care and even a topic of seniors with HIV. This website is a good resource for finding out more information.


http://www.eldercare.gov/Eldercare.NET/Public/Home.aspx <----That is the website home page.

Pseudo/Unscientific poll

In class the other day we discussed pseudo/unscientific polls. Dr. Gelbman encouraged us to write a blog post about such a poll that connected to our topic. The poll I found comes from the website of Charles B. Rangle congress man for New York's 15th District. I picked this poll because the topic of Elder-Care is directly effected by any changes made to the public health care options. In this poll 71.8% of the people who chose to participate favored universal health care for everyone. Real polls find this number to be closer to a 50-50 split. This poll is unscientific for a couple reasons. One being that it comes right out and says it is unscientific. The second being the only people who would really take part in this poll are people that support this congressman. Also this poll doesn't collect any demographic data so you really can't tell what kind of sample population you are getting.


http://rangel.house.gov/cblog/2009/06/health-care-reform-poll-results.html

This poll covers the concerns over caring for an elderly person/parent.ABC News conducted this poll by asking questions to 500 baby boomers ages ranging from 42-61 regarding how taking care/assisting with their elderly individual was effecting their life. 57% of the Baby Boomers polled said they feel their parents have good alternatives in terms of care but not the cost. 72% were concerned about their parents future care and 33% of them were very concerned about the future care. 72% of those polled said they feel they are doing enough opposed to the 24% who said they should be doing more and 4% saying they do too much.
These concerns are all very valid because I have witnessed them first hand in my own house. There are good options out there for the elderly when they need assistance but it also very expensive. Other questions that were asked referred to stress levels experienced and how it effects in interactions with certain family members and it does change it trends to get a little more intense and people tend to snap at people more easily than they used to.


http://a.abcnews.com/m/screen?id=3290157&pid=81

Introduction

My name is George Berkheimer I am a senior at Illinois State University majoring in politics and government with a minor in psychology. For my politics 312 blog project I choose the topic of Elder care. This is an issue that is only growing to grow larger with the increased focus on health care reform and the impending retiring of our nation’s largest population the "Baby Boomers." This topic also hits very close to home not only because both of my parents are from the "Baby Boomer" generation but also because my grandmother was hospitalized very recently and will now require a lot of care.