Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Build Back Better Bill Dead? What is Lost?

January 19, 2022

Sen Manchin Probably Killed the BBB Bill-

As the Voting Rights Bill is probably going to be killed by Senator Sinema & Manchin, Machin is also responsible for the probable death of the Build Back Better Bill.

IN December Senator Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and the crucial holdout vote on Build Back Better Bill announced, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation… I’ve tried everything humanly possible; I can’t get there.” Whether this is a death knell for the president’s legislative agenda or just a serious setback is still to be litigated.

President Biden had been in negotiations with Manchin, who has withheld his support for the bill, making him a key vote in the evenly divided chamber. Biden said Manchin has reiterated his support for the overall cost of the bill. He said negotiations are continuing but more time is needed. 

Though Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed to bring the Build Back Better bill up for this month, it is all but doomed. Even so, Democrats hope to revive it in some form that could win support from every member of their Senate caucus.

What Do Seniors Lose

A senior suffering from deafness without hearing aide

 

Hearing Aids for Seniors Gone

Medicare currently does not cover hearing, dental, or vision as it once did but the Build Back Better plan addresses costs for hearing. Changes would not begin until 2023, but it would allow for coverage of hearing aids — an expense that can range drastically, from       $1,000 to a few thousand dollars.

Negotiating Drug Prices Gone

Prescription Drug Prices Not Negotiated By US

The Build Back Better Bill would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices for medications available at a pharmacy or doctor’s office. The current process for determining drug prices varies for the type of medication and how long they have been on the market. This bill offers a few changes, such as imposing a penalty fee for drug companies that raise their prices faster than inflation and laying out the framework for price negotiations.

Lost -Changes in Home- and Community-Based Care.

The spending bill earmarked $150 billion for in-home and community services through Medicaid over the next decade.  The BBB bill contains additional funding for a Medicaid program that provides home- and community-based care services for eligible elderly Americans and people with disabilities. According to Kaiser Family Foundation estimates, there are more than 800,000 people on Medicaid waiting lists for these services across the country. 

Americans don’t always consider home and community-based care or long-term care when making their retirement plans, but they should. Already, a 65-year-old couple retiring could expect to pay $300,000 in retirement for healthcare alone, but that doesn’t include the cost of a homecare aide or nursing home which could amount to thousands of more dollars every month.

If Aging is Your Field Call Your Representative Now

To find your local representative and tell them to support Biden’s bill if you care about aging or caregivers or women or shoring up the frayed- fraught care infrastructure. I have done a series of blogs on the bill. Check them out now 

 

Filed Under: aging life care manager, Biden's Caregiver Bill, Biden's Caregiver Bill Trouble, Biden's Caregiver Infastucure Paln, Biden's new Affordable Drug Bill, Biden’ social and environmental infrastructure package, Big Pharma, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black entrepreneurs, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black RN, Black Travel Nurses, Blog, Build Back Better Bill, Care Infastructure, Care Infrastructure cut out, Care Infrastructure Hearing, caregiver infrastructure, Caregiver Infrastructure bill, case manager, Community and Home Care, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager start up, hearing aides seniors, Hearing Coverage Medicare, Joe Manchin, Medicaid, Medicaid caregiver, Medicare, Medicare dental vision hearing coverage, Medicare Expansion, Medicare Hearing Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pharmaceutical industry Tagged With: aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging parent care, Biden Build Back Better Bill, Biden Build Back Better Bill Dying, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, Hearing Coverage Lost, Hearing Coverage Medicare, Home and Community Based Care, Home and Community Based Care Lost, Mansion Blocking Build Back Better, Negotiating Drug Prices, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Sinema Blocking Build Back Better, soaring drug prices, Unaffordable drug prices

Build Back Better Bill Could be Transformative- BUT -Running out of Time

December 15, 2021

9

Time About Out To Pass Build Back Better Bill

Biden’s Build Back Better Bill is dying. Decades of divestment have cost American families in time, opportunity, and money, with the greatest impacts landing on communities of color, seniors, the disabled, women, and LGBTQ+ people. Building a stronger, more equitable future requires investing in good jobs, quality care, education, and housing.  Senator Manchin and Sinema are blocking Biden’s Bill.

The Build Back Better Bill includes significant investments in our children, families, elderly and disabled 

Seniors will get New Medicare Hearing Benefit

Biden’s ill includes lowered drug prices, Medicare Part D Benefit Redesign according to Kaiser Foundation. But the bill also includes new  Medicare benefits  for seniors in:

  1. ACA Marketplace Subsidies
  2. Lowering Prescription Drug Prices and Spending
  3. Medicaid Coverage Gap
  4. Medicaid Home and Community Based Services and the Direct Care Workforce

Expanded Home & Community Based Care Included

Biden’s Build Back Better Bill , offers so much in caring for families, kids the elderly. In addition to expanding Child Tax Credit payments and ensuring the lowest income families receive the full benefit, would invest in-home- and community-based care services for the aging and people with disabilities; provide pre-k for 3 and 4 year-olds; invest in housing, child care, and nutrition programs; create good jobs, and so much more

Biden’s Bill would provide four weeks of paid medical leave, so the United States can join the rest of the industrialized world in giving its people the dignity of paid time off for a family or health emergency. So, if an aging parent or child is sick or there is a newborn, family can care for them and get paid.

 

 

Write or Call Your Congressman Fast Before Mansion and Sinema Destroy Biden’s Bill

Sign and send a letter to your Democratic senators: Care is infrastructure. The Build Back Better Act must include substantial investments in our families and communities.

 

Here are some quick tips when writing a personal letter or what to say on a call :

  • Keep your letter short or call and to the point;

  • Remind them that you are a constituent;

  • Share your personal story about your career as a care manager,  a social worker a nurse, a geriatric professional and your  client’s needing care, client’s  caring for a loved one, or the plight of a care worker
  • Emphasize that the majority of Americans support investing in human infrastructure, include: expanding Child Tax Credit payments, and ensuring the lowest income families receive the full benefit, investing in-home- and community-based care services for the aging and people with disabilities; providing pre-k for 3 and 4 year-olds; investing in housing, child care, and nutrition programs; creating good jobs; and more;
  • Encourage them to keep pushing to ensure investments in the care economy remain in the Build Back Better Act.
  • PLEASE DO THIS NOW ESPECIALLY FOR SENIORS IF YOU WORK WITH THEM

Filed Under: Biden Infrastructure Bill Passing, Biden's Care Infrastructure Bill, Biden's Caregiver Bill, Biden's Caregiver Bill Trouble, Biden's new Affordable Drug Bill, Bild Back Better Bill, Black Aging Family, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black entrepreneurs, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black geriatric care managers, Black RN, Black Travel Nurses, Black Travel RN, Blog, Care Infastructure, Care Infrastructure cut out, Care Infrastructure Dental, Care Infrastructure Hearing, Care infrastucture Vision, caregiver infrastructure, Caregiver low salary, caregiver mental health, Medicaid caregiver, Medicare, Medicare Dental Coverage, Medicare dental vision hearing coverage, Medicare Expansion, Medicare Hearing Coverage, Medicare Vision Coverage Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, Biden Build Back Better Bill, Biden Build Back Better Bill Dying, Biden's Home Care Plan, Biden's infrastructure- Caregiver Bill, Build Back Better Bill, care manager, case manager, Dental Coverage Medicare, geriatric care manager, Mansion Blocking Build Back Better, Medicare expansion 2021, Medicare Hearing Benefit, Medicare Part D Redesign, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Sinema Blocking Build Back Better

3 Congressmen Blocking Bill to Lower Drug Prices Needed for Seniors

September 20, 2021

 

Congress Lowering Drug prices Biden’s Goal in Infrastructure Bill

Three Congressman voted against President Biden effort to lower drug prices, an issue that overwhelmingly affects seniors. Biden wants Medicare to be granted the power to negotiate lower drug prices, have pharmaceutical companies to face penalties if they raise prices faster than inflation, and a new cap on how much Medicare recipients have to spend on medications. 

3 Moderate Democrats Plus all Republicans Oppose Biden’s Drug Price Affordability Bill

Yet when the Energy and Commerce vote on the drug-pricing language came up on Biden drug price

reduction plan this month the vote was 29-29, with three moderate Democrats joining Republicans to oppose it: Reps. Scott Peters of California, Kathleen Rice of New York and Oregon’s Schrader. Tie votes in Congress are usually insufficient to keep legislative provisions alive. 

Schrader, who inherited a fortune from his grandfather who was a top executive at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, has accepted large donations from big pharma during his seven terms in Congress.

 

Drug Price Soar While Seniors Can’t Afford Living in Fear

Outrage of older  patients over soaring drug prices has done little if anything to slow medication prices ascent, with the retail price tag for brand name drugs widely used by older Americans

jumping by an average of 15.5 percent in 2015 — the fourth straight year with a double-digit increase, a new AARP Public Policy Institute report finds.

Drug price increases over the past 10 years, that AARP executive vice president for policy, strategy and international affairs called “just shocking,” included Ativan 1 mg tablets, the anti-anxiety drug, with price hikes of up to 2,873 percent between 2006 and 2015, and the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL 300 mg tablets, which increased by 1,185 percent. The retail price of Humulin U-500, a short-acting insulin product used to

treat diabetes, rose by 538 percent over the past 10 years, most of that in the past five years.

Seniors Also Pay over $4000 a Year for Health Insurance

That’s on top of the roughly $4,400 per year they paid for health insurance premiums and other healthcare services such as long-term care and visits to the doctor. Some seniors, though, may pay much more for their medications

 

Geriatric Care Managers Call Your Congress Person

Geriatric Care Managers who understand the importance of passing this bill. So call your Congressman and tell her him to vote for this bill, which so needed by elders in the US. Here is an easy way to do that 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Biden's Caregiver Bill, Biden's Caregiver Bill Trouble, Biden's Caregiver Infastucure Paln, Biden's new Affordable Drug Bill, Biden’ social and environmental infrastructure package, Big Pharma, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black Travel RN, Blog, care economy, Care Infastructure, Care Infrastructure, Care Infrastructure cut out, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pharmaceutical industry, Seniors Drug Prices, Unaffordable drug prices Tagged With: AARP, aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, Biden's Infrastructure Bill, Biden's infrastructure- Caregiver Bill, Biden’ social and environmental infrastructure package, Big Pharma, black aging family, black american social workers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, lower Drug Prices, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, pharmaceutical industry, soaring drug prices, Unaffordable drug prices

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