Tom Horner Talks Aging

Date

Sep 10th, 2010 2:21pm

Author

Category

long-term care

1. In 2020, Minnesota will have more seniors than children for the first time in our history. What are opportunities for innovation that you see as it relates to this unprecedented demographic shift often called “The Age Wage”?

We need to integrate technology into care delivery to achieve the highest quality, most cost-effective services and outcomes:

• Use technology to manage the chronic illnesses of older Minnesotans on a daily basis to help them live healthier, more active lives and avoid expensive hospitalizations. New online services are now connecting older Minnesotans with care providers for daily interaction through special internet connections. This is another reason why a statewide broadband system is so important.
  
• Use specifically designed computers that can perform daily monitoring of blood pressure and other vital signs and face-to-face conversations that give care providers a chance to spot warning signs and make adjustments in medication or diet before a crisis occurs. Where these systems have been implemented, they are proving to be enormously successful in improving the quality of life while reducing costs.
  
• Implement technologies to allow seniors to stay in their own homes longer, saving them money and, potentially, saving tax dollars in the event the senior spends down to Medicaid. In addition it gives family caregivers, especially those who live far away, a measure of comfort when they are unable to be with their loved one.

In addition, we need stages of care, so that seniors who don’t need highest-cost nursing care can remain as independent as possible. We need to find more ways to encourage local communities to provide the relatively small but crucial services (like snow shoveling, garbage carry-out, meal delivery) that can allow people to stay in their own homes.

2. According to the Minnesota Board of Aging, only half of working adults have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan; the other half do not and are struggling to save for retirement. The current economic recession further hampers people’s abilities to save. Experts predict that approximately one-third of Minnesotan Baby Boomers cannot afford long-term care costs.

What is your vision for financing long-term care for the coming age wave?

As more options for care become available, payment must become less dependent on rigid and poorly designed public programs. Reforms should encourage individuals to take greater responsibility for funding the cost of care and also make it possible to take advantage of the care setting that best suits their needs. We need to expand the incentives available to help seniors and their families contribute toward their long term care expenses:

• Create incentives for private savings with plans like the 529 program for funding student education
• Develop more affordable catastrophic insurance options as well as focus additional savings incentives for those with lower/moderate income
• Encourage home equity programs with lower administrative fees
• Reduce the incentive to use Medicaid as the sole long-term care insurance program by creating a system where users become responsible for co-payment of long-term care costs.

3. How do you foresee aging policy changing in your administration?

As the population over the age of 65 increases the pressure only grows to solve the problem of affordable and sustainable long term care. I believe my proposal goes a long way toward addressing the immediate and mid-range concerns, while building the base that Minnesota will need to address the long term issues around aging. My administration will consider what some might think of extraneous issues, such as the need for transportation to receive the care that people need as well as other community services that will allow people to age in place. I expect that my push to make broadband internet service available statewide will provide new opportunities for monitoring and treating the ailments of old age, which will benefit families caring for their elders as well as the patients themselves.

4. What is your vision for the way you, personally, will age?

This would be a good question to get the conversation started around Minnesota! I think I share the vision of all Minnesotans who want to age near loved ones with as many freedoms intact as possible. None of us want to be told where we have to go as we get older and need care. However, individually we need to think about what that means, and prepare for older old age. My wife, Libby, and I try to do what the experts advise--watch our diets, get plenty of exercise, and stay involved. My choice is community involvement on issues that matter to me--the environment, helping those less fortunate, and good public policy. One of my heroes in terms of contribution to society and aging well is the late former governor Elmer L. Andersen. Well into his 90s, he was an advisor, a philosopher, and friend to many younger people and cared deeply about our state.

5. Where do you want to live when you are old? Your current home, assisted living or a nursing home?

Like most Minnesotans I would choose to remain in my home as I age. The statements above and the details in my FAIR proposal lay out a plan to keep Minnesotans in their homes as long as it makes sense to them. We would all prefer the kind of assistance that makes continued living at home possible, noting that companionship of people we love, and who care about us, is crucial. I hope not to require full nursing care, but want to make sure the excellent nursing home care available in Minnesota is still there, should that need arise. My plan, if I am elected, is to change the way nursing home care is financed, so that care will be available for anyone who needs it.