Caregiverlist’s mission is to “Care for the Caregiver”.
Because of this, we think it is cool that senior caregivers will now have access to health insurance, with passage of the recent healthcare legislation, signed into law by President Obama.
Our recent survey (which was no surprise to us) showed that only 26% of senior caregivers had health insurance through a company health benefit. This is because caregivers who are part-time may not qualify for benefits and because many small businesses may not provide health insurance, if they do not have 75% participation for a group plan.
Another cool aspect of the healthcare bill is the CLASS Act. This is long-term care insurance, via paycheck contribution, to the insurance program. If you don’t need it, that is great, if you do need it, you receive around $75 a day, as long as you have signed up and contributed for 5 years.
Other benefits of health insurance:
- Preventive health care
- Eliminates the high cost of “free” health care in emergency rooms which has always been passed on in the form of higher costs to the paying patients
- Insurance companies cannot drop someone because they are sick
- Insurance companies will need to share the cost of the overhead
As senior care will become one of the top employers in the next decade, it makes sense for senior caregivers to have access to health insurance.
