Long Term Care Management and Planning

       Long Term Care, Nursing Homes, and Medicare need funds. The aging population of America also will need this care at some point. Both the care and the funds are essential for older population. But the question of where the funds will come from has no concrete answer. Many people do not realize the importance and costs of long term care until they are presented with a problem that correlates a family or friend with long term care. Unfortunately, The United States struggles with the costs of long term care because they are extremely high. The reason these costs are so high is because Americans do not like the idea of paying for this long term care in advance, or at a younger age.

The Older American Act is in place which could help elders by providing things like meals on wheels and elderly support in general. These precautionary measures and care could save money in the long run.  Medicare will slowly be pushed to a universal health care system but funding could make this impossible, however, I believe it could work with proper financial planning.  

Maggie Hassan, William Thomas, and Marco Rubio all bring an interesting view on how to provide funds for long term care. William Thomas created the Green house project which Maggie Hassan and Marco are in favor of, however, Marco believes premium support systems could be the answer that allows elders to have the choice of whether to spend their money on private insurance or Medicaid. Maggie Hassan also disagrees with the private funding aspect of the Green House Project. All this controversy of how funding should be accumulated, whether it be through the government or private insurers is the face of the problem. Ted Cruz is so against federal funding and social medicine. We face the problem of how to settle somewhere in the middle to find funding for the health care of the aging population. The question of whether or not we should make this long term care insurance mandatory in the United States is presented. I find it critical that we make this decision and decide how to start saving up funds to put towards our care in the future. I believe that acting and taking precautionary measures such as taking a percentage of our pay and putting it into an account to accumulate and gain interest could be the answer. Taking such precautionary measures and a primary approach could be essential. There needs to be a plan or some form of collecting money for long term care to help deal with the costs and provide the elderly with the care they deserve.

How Sugar Sweetened Beverages Effect Our Health

     Time after time we see science and health care changing. This change is inevitable and that is why it is necessary we recognize the change and work with the change. A simple public health crisis 20 years ago was tobacco and cigarette use. Although there is still some challenge ending tobacco use, there are new problems our society is facing such as childhood obesity. A small group of students that I have been working with have been doing some research on sugar sweetened beverages and how they affect the obesity of our population. 

     Beverages such as soda are becoming a health risk today and no one would have expected this, just as no one had known or expected cigarettes to cause as much harm as they do. Numerous studies have shown the correlation between sugar sweetened beverages and childhood obesity. Recently Mexico has implemented a tax on sugar sweetened beverage and there has already proven to be a drop in the number of purchases of these sweetened drinks. There are hopes that people will soon see a drop in childhood obesity and obesity rates all around. The idea of implementing this tax on sugar sweetened beverage is fairly new to the United States. Philadelphia has talked about implementing this tax and requiring that all funds collecting from this tax go directly to healthcare programs or schooling programs for children. 

     With concrete data from Mexico, perhaps the U.S. will be more likely to follow through. I do not believe this taxation will take place anytime soon in the U.S. because many people are likely to fight it. However, I believe if a small amount of tax is put on these sugar sweetened beverages in the United States it will beneficial for many. Some people will not continue to buy soda, and hopefully sugar sweetened beverage sales will drop and so will obesity rates. Those who do not mind paying the tax will continue to buy sugar sweetened beverages and the tax will help fund education and health promotion as well as contribute to primary prevention of obesity and diabetes. It is important for many of us to see numbers and exactly where the money from the tax is going so that we support it. For me personally, I would not mind paying a few extra cents on things if I knew it were going to benefit and improve the health of our community. "According to the city of Philadelphia, a three cent per ounce excise tax could raise approximately $400 million over the next 5 years" (Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, Philadelphia). Even this one example can show just how much money can be raised if this plan is executed. 400 million dollars is an incredibly large amount of money to be made and used in health care from something that is currently making $0 on tax. In addition to the fact that the intention of this is to improve the health of our people. Making the change with health and medicine is often difficult but essential. 

References: 

-Afzal, Stephen C. Resch and Angie L. Cradock J. Ward, Jessica L. Barrett, Erica L. Kenney, Kendrin R. Sonneville, Amna Sadaf  Steven L. Gortmaker, Y. Claire Wang, Michael W. Long, Catherine M. Giles, Zachary. 2015. "Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More"."Than They Cost To Implement Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity Are Projected To Save More". Retrieved 11 November 2017. http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/34/11/1932.full.html

-Choices Project. Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, Philadelphia. 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
PA BRIEF_Cost-Effectiveness-of-a-Sugar-Sweetened-Beverage-Tax-in-Philadelphia-PA_CHOICESproject.org_5.20.16.pdf.

Millennial's in Health Care

     I had the opportunity to attend the Northern New England Association of Health Care executives this weekend in Ogunquit, Maine. This conference took place at the Cliff House and I was fortunate to be surrounded by many intelligent and upper level health care executives such as CEO's, CNO's, COO's and more. The amount of knowledge in the room was incredible. One man, however, really stuck out to me and all the things he had to say were important in my eyes.

    Josh Luke is a well developed and experienced health care futurist and has had some of the best opportunities in the game. Josh has a lot of strong beliefs in health care and how to improve healthcare as a whole. Much of what he said came back to Millennials and how we do things as a generation. He said " When I ask baby boomers to jump, they say how high, but when I ask millenials to jump, they say why?". We as millennials will always ask why and that is how we think. Why would we do something? Why would it help us, hurt us, improve us? We want to know why. We constantly ask questions and we want an explanation for most things. I think that this is important because we all think this way and function this way. We do and will think this way in our future healthcare jobs as well. I think many of our "why's?" have led to new techniques, discoveries, and advances in health care and they will continue to do so. Josh then proceeded to say that "there is nothing wrong with the way the millennials think but it is different and we need to learn and adjust to it because they are going to be running our health care system soon". Josh Luke made so many great points about fixing the bad, fixing the problems, and working to improve. It is essential that current healthcare professionals and millennials work together to advance health care and understand one another's mindset. We use technology in everything we do, for example every hospital is implementing EMR's if they haven't already. A millennials train of thought and technological skills are already being seen throughout the healthcare world. As millennials trickle into health care systems and spread their "why's" and technology knowledge things will continue to change. Adjusting current views and working the two generations into one another is key for success in running any healthcare system. Millennials have a different way of thinking that has the potential to improve healthcare systems as we face the challenge of continuous change in healthcare.