Federal Update
The Alzheimer’s Association Advocacy and Public
Policy Division in Washington, D.C. has carried out
intense advocacy efforts for increased funding for
Alzheimer’s research and restoration of federal support
for the care programs cut or eliminated in the
President’s 2008 budget proposal.
The federal budget funding will not be fully resolved
until the House and Senate committees debate the specific
bills that fund Alzheimer’s research and care programs
for 2008 and a House and Senate compromise
concludes.The following outlines the current status of
research and care program funding for 2007, as well as
the president’s proposed 2008 funding and the
Alzheimer’s Association budget goals for 2008:
- Alzheimer’s research in the current 2007 budget is
funded at $643 million. Under the president’s 2008
proposed budget, research is funded at $642 million.
The Alzheimer’s Association goal for 2008 is $768
million.
- The Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Contact Center
which responds to nearly 30,000 callers each month
is currently funded at $1 million.The president’s
proposed 2008 budget eliminated funding for the
Contact Center.The Alzheimer’s Association goal
for 2008 is again $1 million.
- The current funding for the CDC Brain Health
Initiative is $1.6 million, and the president’s proposed
funding calls as well for $1.6 million.The
Alzheimer’s Association is seeking $3 million for
this program.
- The State Matching Grants Program for development
of innovative and cost effective programs for
delivering services to persons with Alzheimer’s and
their caregivers is currently funded at $11.8 million.
Funding for this program was eliminated in the
president’s 2008 budget proposal.The Association
is seeking $12 million.
- Safe Return, the program which works at the
community level to provide assistance in finding
a missing person, is funded currently at $840,000.
The president’s proposal did not provide funding
for 2008, and the Association is seeking $1 million.
State Update
Governor Spitzer and the Legislature continue to focus on
home and community based services and person centered
and coordinated care efforts to enable persons to remain in
their own homes and communities and avoid unnecessary
institutionalization. In NYC there are an estimated over two
hundred thousand persons with Alzheimer’s, and the numbers
continue to grow as the population ages. A combination
of supports to families and other caregivers and home
and community based long term care services has a most
important role in enabling persons with Alzheimer’s to
remain at home.
Although family members and other informal supports
provide the large majority of care at no cost to the state, as
the disease progresses formal services become of increasing
importance to maintaining the ill person at home.These formal
programs and services provide not just an alternative to
costly institutional care but deliver cost-effective and appropriate
services for persons with dementia, persons with physical
disabilities, and those with chronic illnesses. Indeed persons
with Alzheimer’s disease receiving home and community-
based services can remain at home for long periods of
time, even over the long duration of illness, thereby delaying
or avoiding institutionalization.Without the availability of
these formal services, caregivers,many of them aging persons
themselves, can become overwhelmed by the caregiver burden
and prematurely seek residential care for their loved
ones.
The very high cost of private care for persons with
Alzheimer’s over the long duration of illness, however, results
in a deep dependence on publicly funded (primarily
Medicaid) long term care.The Medicaid-funded home and
community programs include adult day health care,managed
long term care programs providing both long term care and
other needed health care, the Long Term Home Health Care
Program, and the NYC home care/personal care program
providing home attendants through vendor agencies to eligible
clients for up to twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week.There is as well a consumer (family in the instance of
dementia) directed personal assistance program (CDPAP). It
should be noted that while adult day health care programs
are Medicaid funded, the social day care model of great benefit
to persons with Alzheimer’s is largely private pay. The
NYC Chapter will continue to follow and monitor these
programs of such importance.
— Ann Berson, M.U.P.
Vice President, Director of Public Policy
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