CORRECTION: CORRECTION: As Congress eyes Medicaid cuts, rising costs for elder care are on Alaska’s horizon
In just over a decade, the eldest in the massive baby boomer generation will turn 85 years old, an age beset with the highest of health care costs throughout
This impending cost increase comes as
There is also consideration of tightening the Medicaid cap on home and community-based service funding, which could affect
[On eve of bill reveal,
Medicaid isn't the central health care mechanism for seniors, but it does handle some of the most expensive aspects of health care. Just about everyone over the age of 65 is eligible for Medicare, which pays for most medical services. In
But Medicaid comes in for low-income people to cover what Medicare doesn't pay for -- vision, dental care and long-term care.
It's the long-term care that really digs into the coffers: During the state's 2016 fiscal year, Medicaid paid for 777 people in nursing homes at a cost of
Currently, long-term care support -- for those who are elderly and those who aren't -- totals about one-third of
"So a peak that puts this kind of pressure on nursing homes and our long-term service and support for seniors is definitely going to have the potential to have a significant impact on the total Medicaid budget," Sherwood said.
[
The "growing elderly population is a risk factor for Medicaid in general," said
Few people who make it to the point of needing nursing home care can afford to pay for it. In fiscal year 2016, the average per-person cost for nursing home care in
In fiscal year 2015, the state spent 63 percent of its long-term care dollars on home and community-based services, as opposed to nursing home care, according to the
But more expensive nursing home care could rise with a much older population.
[Murkowski says she's unhappy with secrecy surrounding
That includes home help with activities like feeding, bathing, dressing, shopping and laundry.
"So as folks get older, they're more likely to need nursing home or home-community-based waivers or personal care services," Sherwood said.
"It's inevitable that it's going to put upward pressure on our costs," Sherwood said of
There are alternative, private sources of long-term care insurance, but they have historically been costly and scarce. And people headed toward octogenarian status in the next decade would have to have purchased those plans 10 or 20 years earlier.
Given the changing demographics, if
Correction: This story previously misstated the number of Alaskans added to Medicaid through the expansion. There are 33,945 new Medicaid consumers, not 14,400.
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