In its first policy paper, a foundation started last year by the Southern California-based Senior Care Action Network (SCAN) to “advance the development of a sustainable continuum of quality care for elders” calls for investing in direct care workers.
Long-Term Care in Health Care Reform: Policy Options to Improve Both (PDF) is a detailed report by four distinguished researchers. The authors present four policy options for including long-term care support and services in health care reform.
They propose four overarching changes to the system:
- Expand Medicaid support for home and community‐based services;
- Improve coordination of medical and long‐term care for Medicare‐Medicaid “dual eligibles”;
- Improve coordination of medical and long‐term care for Medicare enrollees; and
- Establish a new public long‐term care insurance program.
In writing about the first, they make it clear that these services cannot be expanded unless there are enough qualified and committed direct care workers available to deliver them, calling on policymakers to “invest in workforce development to assure people can obtain the type and quality of home and community-based services they need and want.”
Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance
