In nursing homes, impoverished live final days on pennies

[demmiblue]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — New pants to replace Alex Morisey’s tattered khakis will have to wait. There’s no cash left for sugar-free cookies either. Even at the month’s start, the budget is so bare that Fixodent is a luxury. Now, halfway through it, things are so tight that even a Diet Pepsi is a stretch.

“How many years do I have left?” asks 82-year-old Morisey, who lives in a Philadelphia nursing home. “I want to live those as well as I can. But to some degree, you lose your dignity.”

Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents are locked in a wretched bind: Driven into poverty, forced to hand over all income and left to live on a stipend as low as $30 a month.

In a long-term care system that subjects some of society’s frailest to daily indignities, Medicaid’s personal needs allowance, as the stipend is called, is among the most ubiquitous, yet least known.

https://apnews.com/article/nursing-home-medicaid-personal-needs-allowance-poverty-2e0a2d90d7d63d4b476397a50a9cddff

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[Bayard]

1. When I read this kind of stuff,

I realize again how fortunate we were to get my parents into a nice and new assisted living facility. They had adjoining rooms, and even let my Mom bring her cat. There were live plants, a multi-tiered bird cage with zebra finches that my Mom adored, and regular outings.

On the other hand, I went with a friend to a NH where her mother had passed away to pick up her few belongings. She'd had a tiny room you could barely turn around in. Many residents were sitting around in the common areas, staring at the walls. It didn't look particularly clean. One of the most depressing places I've ever been in my life.

[Sky Jewels]

2. Richest nation in the world ...

It's okay, though. As long as the billionaires don't have to pay more taxes, all is well.

[MLAA]

3. +1000

[Deuxcents]

4. Late last night I watched PBS World and the segment

Was called “Care”. It was about elder care and followed three seniors. One was disabled, one was very elderly and the other one was with Alzheimer’s. They all had spent every bit of their life’s savings to stay at home with a hired caregiver. The caregivers were interviewed, too, and their problems are many in a system that charges big fees but pays the caregivers little and no benefits. A very sad thing going on in this country and being older myself, it was not comforting.

[Solly Mack]

5. No excuse for this.

No good excuse anyway.

[leftstreet]

6. ThEy sHouLd hAvE plAnnEd bEtteR

that's what we're all told



DURec

[Photochop Fodder]

7. My Mom Has Had The Samething Happen To Her.

She is in a nursing home for rehab here in Maine. The nursing home told her last month that after August 19th that Medicare would no long pay for her physical therapy. And the options were either go home which she isn't well enough to do or go into long term care. In which case she will lose her Social Security check. Well all of it except a monthly allowance of $40.

[Wonder Why]

8. Shame on the Nursing homes! They couldn't take the last few pennies? Tell the

CEO that Ebenezer is not living up to his reputation any more and the boss should get a tougher manager.