Access to Health Care/Long Term Care

Long-term care is one of the most important public policy issues confronting the Delaware Valley. It affects the lives of more than 500,000 Pennsylvanians in a $4.4 billion publically funded industry. The number of Pennsylvanian’s needing long-term care is expected to skyrocket as the baby boomers retire, representing a trend that threatens to overwhelm the financial resources and service capacity of the current system. Like the more notorious problem of the uninsured, long-term care has been an ongoing challenge affected by supply, cost, and quality.

United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s public policy agenda for long-term care includes:

• Supporting Pennsylvania legislation for “Assisted Living” that would for the first time legally define assisted living, require public oversight, assure quality, and make assisted living accessible to persons with lower incomes
• Support changes to personal care home regulations in Pennsylvania that would add enforcement, improve requirements for staff training and qualifications, and allow more medical care
• Support activities to improve the industry’s infrastructure, i.e., staff training, quality assurance, consumer rights and responsibilities, enforcement of standards, and work culture
• Assist Commonwealth-led efforts to improve the financial balance between institution and home and community based services.
• Increase funding for Older Americans Act (OAA) programs and services. OAA is the foundation of services for older adults and is the heart of a national network of home and community-based services.
• Restore the authorization level to fund the Social Services Block Grant program, which supports home and community base care services, at $2.8 billion in 2004-05 budget.

For more information, contact the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania at 215.665.2584 or uwsepa@uwsepa.org.