Is Capitalism Killing Our Elderly? Essay

Current numbers show substantial growth from the eighties, and estimates suggest that the demand for long term care among the elderly will more than double in the next thirty years. (Feder, Komisar, and Niefeld) This growth will exacerbate concerns about balancing institutional and noninstitutional care, assuring quality of care, and most importantly adopting and sustaining financing mechanisms that equitably and adequately protect the elderly who need long-term care.

When you hear the words, “Nursing Home”, what comes to mind? Sad, helpless, elderly individuals? The smell of urine? An overall, unpleasant place to reside in? Unfortunately, this generic description is accurate amongst majority of the nursing home facilities across the United States. More often than not, the elderly suffer from inhumane living conditions while residing in a nursing facility. Quite often we hear stories on the news about cases of elder abuse in the nursing home and we automatically think physical, mental, or emotional abuse from caregivers. However, the fact that these individuals are also living amongst unsanitary, inhumane conditions, and ran by a staff that includes

Is it worth putting your loved ones in a nursing home facility? According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Each year, hundreds of thousands of adults over the age of 60 are abused, neglected, or financially exploited.” Family members of an elderly person might assume that because they are paying such a large amount of money for assistance and a room in the facility, that they’re getting the best treatment and care for their relative. Although one might believe their loved ones would be better off in a nursing home, they might be putting them at a greater risk of abuse due to understaffing, lack of training within the staff, neglect, nurse burnout, and low wages. 2,150,000 cases

Vulnerability is defined as susceptibility or increased risk for health problems (DeChesnay, 2008).  A group of individuals are considered at higher risk for illness when their physical, emotional, psychological, or social health, is compromised (Aday, 2001).  There are many leading causes for why a population is considered at higher risk; socioeconomic, age, gender, demographics, personal, and cultural backgrounds are some of the key factors (Aday, 2001; Sebation, 1996). Individuals can become vulnerable at any time because of change in life circumstances, placing them at higher risk. One group

In the implementation phase of this regulation, it was faced with myriad of political, economic, technical, ethical and legal challenge and the end result of universal access to high quality healthcare which was far from assured. He further argues that nursing facilities in the additional public disclosure requirements, long time service and support (LTSS) were not a pressing priority of ACA drafters and its proponents. The LTSS was for people who needed assistance in order to perform daily activates over a long period die to chronic illness or disabilities in community based and institutional

For a long period of time, hospitals have basically been established as nonprofit and for-profit facilities with several similarities and differences between these categories. Notably, these categories have minimal differences though it's difficult to predict their quality based on their structures. The healthcare field has also been characterized by several trends in the past three decades in attempts to improve the delivery of services and patient outcomes. In relation to the provision of long-term care, hospitals and nursing homes have different roles that enable them to achieve this objective. The hospital sector in the United States has experienced several changes that have contributed to its current state of long-term care policy.

Unfortunately, in recent years the cost of providing these traditional services has grown to a point that the programs set in place to care for seniors and chronically ill patients has undergone numerous cuts. This calls into question are the standards of care that nursing facilities provide being cut to compensate for these changes in the rate paid.

The healthcare system is one that will always be needed by society. The amount of abuse the system receives depends on the amount of uninsured citizens. If a patient is uninsured, their bills typically fall to the Medicare system. Because of this, the elderly are unable to use the benefits of Medicare as they should be allotted. By initiating the Affordable Care Act, the government is attempting to realign the balance between the insurance companies and Medicare, and to provide millions of uninsured Americans the opportunity to have medical insurance (King, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Affordable Care Act, and how it affects my personal nursing practice.

The nursing home care is a competitive, fast growing and flourishing industry. Healthcare facility’s profitability is directly linked to patient satisfaction. Evidence exists

One thing every living organism has in common on this planet-- age. No one wants to age or face the fact that aging is inevitable. However, since it’s impossible to beat the never ending time clock that is life; everyone wants to be as comfortable as possible when age finally does catch up with them. When the majority of people think of comfortability in old age, they think of living in their own homes and being surrounded by their loved ones. Not many individuals want to be placed into a nursing home type facility because they can’t imagine themselves being comfortable that way. Nonetheless, even though being placed in a home does take away some of an elderly person’s independence, usually the independence lost is in activities that person can no longer do for themselves. Indeed, nursing homes do have their own set of scary stories behind them; life lost, independence lost, and privacy lost, yet many of those stories are outdated. Upon investigation, it would be easy for anyone to scare themselves out of a nursing facility due to the stories that are out there. Yet, upon even further research people would be able to see how far the United States has come in their development and evolution of nursing care facilities. The care of the elderly in the form of nursing homes has faced a tough evolution starting off with a harsh past, to what nursing homes are like now, and what people can expect for the future of these homes.

This exercise point out some very important factors with regard to health care cost.  nursing homes and other health care delivery systems are faced with significant shortfalls in reimbursement for various reasons.  Medicare reimbursement often does not cover the full extent of treatment of individuals.  McPike (2008) notes that, “The insurance and hospital industries released a study today showing that underpayment by Medicare and Medicaid costs consumers and employers $88 billion more a year for health care as providers attempt to make up the difference.” Today with continue cutbacks in medicare reimbursement this number is significantly higher.  In an attempt to reclaim these losses, both self pay and privately insured patients are charge

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the aging population is likely to impact the necessary size and composition of the health care workforce (Center for Health Workforce Studies, 2006). There are now 35 million people over the age of 65 in the United States. It is estimated that about 1.6 million older adults will be living in nursing homes with almost half of the residents being over the age 85 years old (Kovner, Brewer, Fairchild, Poornima, Kim, and Jadjukic, 2007). The purpose of this paper is to he identify of facility and number of residents being care for. What would be the role of the nurse practitioner in this facility and the regulatory issues as it supports this role?

In Being Mortal, Atul Gawande painted a little depressing picture of the realities faced by the elderly in the US nowadays: declining health status, economic insecurity, and loss of independence. It seems once the older people move into nursing homes or assisted living facilities, they lose autonomy, dignity and privacy as the institutions are not able to fully individualize care. Even though the situation has been improving, it still shocks me to see how unhappy some of the elderly are in these circumstances. Realizing senior care facilities often fail to address all aspects of well-being, I would like to explore the issues of promoting both objective and subjective component in quality of care for the older people.

Before there was any type of reform, legislation those that were running these Long-Term Services were abusing and neglecting the patients they were be paid to take care of, in light of quality of life. They were giving them medications that were keep them in deep trances were they didn’t have to care for them, but could keep them in a trance like state for hours and even days at times. “Although Nursing Home Care in general has improved, problems persist in areas relevant to end-of-life care, including pressure sore, malnutrition, dehydration, pain and quality of life.” (Sarah Thompson, 2008 ) These were all serious issues that needed to be addressed and major improvements starting happening within Long-Term

For all of mankind, the cost of health care is a major daily stressor. This article stated an interesting fact that, “A concern of businesses and governments for at least 30 years, the cost of health care in the United States has approached 15 percent of the total gross national product (Barbara R. Heller, Marla T. Oros, and Jane Durney-Crowley, 2013, para. 19).” Even with that fact, there are over 40 million individuals living in the United States that do not have health care coverage. The total health care spending in America surpasses that of any other developed country. This is due to technological advances that are readily available and breakthroughs in medicine. Still, there are present concerns in nursing practices, such as: the affects on the nursing profession, treatment options for their patients, and the patients participation in their own care. This article stated, “Nursing professionals, who have historically taken the lead in health education and health promotion, are disappointed by the lack of financing and reimbursement available through managed care organizations for