West Virginia
The Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) now under consideration in the Senate would drastically alter West Virginia’s Medicaid program. The proposed Senate bill would change the way the federal government currently funds Medicaid by limiting federal funding and shifting cost over time to both states and Medicaid enrollees. The BCRA would subject older adults, adults with disabilities, Medicaid expansion adults, and non-disabled children under age 19 to mandatory per enrollee caps beginning in 2020. State Medicaid programs would have the option to choose between block grants and per enrollee caps for non-elderly, non-disabled, non-expansion adults.
During National Nurses Week (May 6–12, 2016), we celebrate nurses. I say, let’s celebrate nurses every day! Across the country, these hardworking professionals help us get and stay well, and provide comfort and care when we’re at our most vulnerable. In my experience, they do this with incredible skill as well as a smile.
This weekend we all had the opportunity to celebrate our fathers. As I remembered my Pop — a funny, hardworking, unselfish man — I thought about his devotion to my mom, especially during their later lives when he was her primary caregiver. He shouldered huge responsibilities that I think weighed heavily on his mind.
Even with her training as a nurse, family caregiver Joanne Davis says she doesn’t feel equipped to handle certain tasks as she cares for her husband. “I think of people who are in a situation who don’t have that sort of experience and I don’t know how they manage,” she says. And yet, nearly half of the 42 million family caregivers in America perform medical and nursing tasks to care for their loved ones. This can be managing medications, cleaning wounds or feeding tubes, giving injections and more. Most do this all with little or no training.
Valentine’s Day may be over, but 42 million Americans continue to give their hearts each and every day. They are family caregivers who help parents, spouses, aunts, uncles and other loved ones to live independently at home, where they want to be. For these unsung heroes, love goes beyond chocolate and roses — and their labor of love means driving to doctor’s appointments, cooking, cleaning, helping bathe and dress their loved ones, managing medications, performing medical tasks and more.
”Great news from Illinois: A new law will help 2.5 million workers retire with confidence. Signed by former Gov. Quinn this year, the Illinois Secure Choice Program gives millions of state residents a way to save for their future at work — a tool that increases savings rates by 15 times. Upon signing the bill, Gov. Quinn shared, “This is a special ... opportunity, for all of us to go forward at helping people save for retirement.
People in the boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, are celebrating the 50th birthdays of their youngest members in 2014. To mark this event, AARP asked Washington, D.C.-based photographer Jared Soares to explore Boomer, W.Va.
West Virginia’s two major-party candidates for the U.S. Senate support raising the Social Security wage base limit from its current level of $117,000, and in an Oct. 7 debate both voiced concern over the long-term financing of the program.