Baby Boomers and the Shrinking Health Care Workforce

Medical News Today brings us more disquieting news about the state of health care as it relates to the wave of Baby Boomers soon to retire. According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, the health care industry is not only unprepared to meet the health needs of the coming onslaught of retirees, but is also lacking enough staff to provide proper care for them:

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the nation's largest organization devoted to aging research, fully supports the publication's call for a labor pool of adequate size and competency to care for a rapidly increasing over-65 population.

"This pivotal report lays out a much-needed strategy for developing a network of health professionals and frontline workers to avert a crisis in quality care for older persons," said GSA President Lisa Gwyther, MSW. "Complex chronic illness is an issue that we all will face with age. The current fragmented system of care desperately requires an increase in better-prepared personnel to sustain itself."

When you combine the number of Americans reaching retirement age in the next few years with the continually extending life expectancy, an uneasy picture emerges. To aggravate the situation, the number of geriatric specialists is shrinking.

Marie Bernard, MD, president of The Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (GSA's educational unit), said policymakers must act quickly to address these problems.

"To meet the needs of our aging parents and grandparents, we need to increase the number of geriatric health specialists - both to provide care for those older adults with the most complex issues and to train the rest of the workforce in the common medical problems of old age," Bernard said.

The elderly already are responsible for a disproportionate amount of health care resources, partly due to the prevalence of chronic conditions that require continual or serial treatments. With the number of people in that age bracket doubling in the next few years, this issue is, like so many that we write about here, critical.

SOURCE: "Looming Baby Boomer Health Care Crisis; GSA Bolsters Call For Stronger Workforce" 04/18/08
photo courtesy of mishajane used according to its Creative Commons license

VEBA in Spotlight of Health Care Reform

The fallout from the UAW-GM agreement shifting retiree health care benefits into a VEBA (Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association) keeps coming.

In a quick, penetrating article, BusinessWeek reporters David Welch and Nanette Byrnes enlighten readers about how many VEBAs are already around (about 12,000 nationwide), who's using them (employers with large, unionized workforces), and how well they are holding up:

In 1998, the equipment giant [Caterpillar ] set up a similar type of health-care trust to defray increases in retiree medical costs. By October, 2004, it ran dry, and retirees saw as much as $281 extra taken from their monthly pension checks. Now the retirees, union, and company are in litigation.

The article quickly explains the benefits of VEBAs to both business and labor:

For employers with aging workers and lots of retirees, a VEBA may be the only way, short of an elusive national health-care plan, to strip crushing liabilities from their books... For unions, a trust can provide an opportunity to safeguard members from losing benefits in the event of a corporate bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, New York Post reporter Paul Tharp is taking a more jaundiced, historical look at VEBAs:

General Motors is saving its financial neck and ending a surprise strike by using a century-old shelter device originally invented to quell the labor riots of the 1920s... VEBAs were created as tax shelters for giant coal and steel companies at the turn of the century to help pay for worker injuries and widows' benefits.

One thing is certain, you'll be hearing a lot more about VEBAs on this blog and in the U.S. Presidential Election campaign in the months ahead.

SOURCE: "Is GM's Health Plan Contagious?" by David Welch and Nanette Byrnes, BusinessWeek, September 27, 2007.
SOURCE: "GM's $nazzy New Model: VEBA," by Paul Tharp, New York Post, September 27, 2007.
photo courtesy of Abandoned In Place at Flickr

Convenient Care Clinics

Web Golinkin, President and CEO of RediClinic, wrote an article in today's Wall Street Journal extolling the virtues of convenient care providers. Golinkin has familiarity with the subject, as RediClinic is one of the largest convenient care providers in the U.S.

Golinkin calls these clinics "[o]ne of the most promising developments" in health care reform. He says that they provide patients easier access to routine care with affordable pricing.

There are currently about 400 such clinics nationwide and Golinkin predicts that there could be several thousand more in the next few years.

Although the medical community was suspicious of convenient care in the beginning, many physicians and professional organizations changed their view when they saw how rapidly consumers embraced the concept and how operators provide high-quality care within a limited scope of practice, treat many patients who do not have established physician relationships (an estimated 30% of all convenient care patients to date), and refer many others. The American Academy of Family Physicians, which represents more than 94,000 family practitioners, recognized that convenient care clinics were filling a need. Rather than opposing the clinics, it published standards of care that it suggested convenient care operators should follow. Operators gladly complied because they had been meeting or exceeding these standards. The Convenient Care Association, which represents more than 20 of the largest operators, subsequently published more stringent standards that their members are now required to meet.

Golinkin is also director and co-founder of the Convenient Care Association.

SOURCE: "Health Care When You Want It" 08/02/07
stock photo courtesy of Michael Connors

Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform Launches

Earlier today, The Brookings Institution announced the creation of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform.

The newly named director, Dr. Mark B. McClellan, is a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Engelberg Center's agenda will focus on four key priorities for long-term change: improving the quality of medical care, increasing access to affordable coverage, encouraging development of more personalized medicines, and reducing costs for public and private programs.

Alfred B. Engelberg, one of two Brookings trustees who gave generous donations for the creation of the Center, says of McClellan:

"[His] proven ability to create and implement important health care reforms, combined with Brookings's long history of thoughtful impact on public policy has the potential to make a real difference in the steps that are taken to fix our broken health care system," said Mr. Engelberg.

More information about the Engelberg Center can be found at the Brookings Institution website.

SOURCE: "PR Newswire"