Barbara Mikulski Quotes

By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.

The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less.

As more people live longer, we can expect there to be additional costs for society.

Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one.

The baby boomer surge is forcing society to face decisions about costs - and particularly what is valuable. It's senseless for clinicians and governments to bear these choices alone; a sad effect of needless paternalism is that it places a false burden on responsible people.

American families, families back home in Minnesota, know only too well that out-of-pocket expenses for health care have been rising at an astonishing rate.

The fact remains that most of us are anesthetized to the true cost and true value of long term care insurance.

In a system where the cost of care is hidden by taxes levied on your income, property, and business activities, it is no wonder why so many Americans rely on Medicaid to pay their long term care.

I think about my grandfather who's 89 years old, and the last thing he needs is more money out of his pocket.

When Medicare was created for senior citizens and America 's disabled in 1965, about half of a senior's health care spending was on doctors and the other half on hospitals.

Modern medicine has presented us with a Faustian bargain: Our aging bodies can bankrupt our children and grandchildren. We have run into the 'law of diminishing returns' in health care, where we are often doing more and more, with higher and higher technology, at more and more cost, for less and less benefit.

One of the big things coming out of healthcare reform is a thing called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS) which is a mechanism to reimburse people staying at home for technology and services that allow them to stay at home.

We can all agree that no American should lose their life savings or their home because of illness or injury and that the rising cost of health care severely burdens individuals, families and businesses.

Aging bodies are fiscal black holes into which you can pour endless amounts of money.

Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.

Five thousand people every day lose their home because of a medical bankruptcy. Most of them had insurance.

Traditionally, Medicare's assurance has been that for the elderly and persons with disabilities that they will not be alone when confronted with the full burden of their health care costs.

We all understand that we are living longer, and we are more likely to spend more years as frail, elderly people who can't work. We also recognize that the wonderful advances in medicine also come with wonderful price tags. Those are things you can't budget around.

My home State of North Carolina ranks 12th in the United States for increased aging population and, according to a national report, 41st in overall health. According to this same report, individuals aged 50+ are the least healthy.

The increasing elderly population, rising expectations about what should be available, and costs of medical advancement—these are problems all countries face ...

I’ve got my own Medicare plan. I’ve got an intern for a son-in-law.

Too many of our senior citizens are being forced to choose between neglecting their illnesses or being impoverished by them.

I had, in my legal practice, often encountered really shocking examples of the devastating impact of the costs of long-term medical care on meager incomes. And, just before I was elected, I had my own personal experience in paying very considerable bills for my mother's terminal illness.

If I really lose the rest of my memory, don't let my kids spend a lot of money to put me in an expensive care facility. If they treat me very well there, I will not remember it, and if they treat me badly I will not remember that either. So it really won't matter, will it?

As America is growing older, there are more and more families caring for older parents and grandparents, and it's extremely expensive.