Last month, CMS announced a first-ever plan to address health equity in Medicare. One of the major priorities is to improve communication and language access for individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). This is important because of the sheer numbers of people it affects and because language barriers are a major cause of low-income older adults being unable to access the health care they need. Here are ten things you should know about language access advocacy for older adults.
For the first time, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a plan to address health equity in Medicare. The plan, developed by the Office of Minority Health, will focus on populations that experience barriers to accessing care and lower quality of care. These include rural residents, Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and LGBT individuals. The plan aims to reduce health disparities in four years, and focuses on six priorities.
Ohio’s Medicaid program covered only a portion of the program’s assisted living bills, leaving frail seniors Betty Hilleger and Geraldine Saunders with unexpected sky-high expenses. And they were not alone. Thousands of Ohio’s seniors faced the same coverage gap. They applied for coverage, but faced delays and unreasonable bills even after they were supposed to be covered. Justice in Aging joined with the Cincinnati firm Beckman Weil Shepardson to represent Hilleger and Saunders in a class action suit against the state to eliminate this coverage gap.
Last week, when 15 firefighter-paramedics arrived at a nursing home in Lake Zurich, Illinois, they were not responding to a crisis. Their purpose was purely educational, as the firefighters embarked on a training day to learn about Alzheimer’s disease. “There’s a large handful of people that have dementia in this area, and we have to deal with them all the time, and care for them, and it’s important that we know how to do it properly,” Fire Department training chief, Mickey Wenzel reported to the local news.
Nationally, twenty-three percent of low-income older adults currently face food insecurity – meaning they lack consistent access to adequate food. This figure is expected to double over the next decade as the number of seniors living in poverty continues to increase. In Los Angeles County, there are over 300,000 low-income seniors who cannot make ends meet. Yet, only a fraction of this population – approximately nineteen percent – receive free food or assistance through existing meal programs.
Imagine being out and proud all of your adult life and then moving into a long-term care facility and having to go back into the closet because you don’t feel safe coming out to staff and other residents. Imagine being dismissed and disrespected when you advocate strongly for the rights of your same-sex companion while she’s being cared for in a nursing home. Imagine feeling like you have to endure homophobic comments from a personal care worker assigned to you because you’re afraid of how he’ll treat you if you speak up.
We are pleased that the Supreme Court decided to protect the current and future health insurance of millions of Americans in today’s King v. Burwell decision. Three years after the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act as the law of the land, we are grateful the court once again dismissed this latest ill-advised attempt to undermine the law, by protecting health coverage for 6.4 million enrollees, who will retain access to tax credit subsidies that make coverage possible.
