The Senate gave final approval late Tuesday to a biennial budget that prioritizes children, dramatically scales back a pledged boost to health care providers who treat the poor and relies on accounting maneuvers to comply with the constitutional spending cap.

 

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 25-11 along party lines to adopt the $55.8 billion two-year budget, which now heads to Gov. Ned Lamont for his expected signature. But the plan still may be tweaked before the General Assembly adjourns at midnight Wednesday because of problems with a related hospital tax increase.

 

The package, which the House approved minutes after midnight Tuesday, would boost funds for nonprofit social service agencies two years from now and increase taxes on corporations.

If the current US House budget proposal passes into law, experts estimate that 140,000 more Connecticut residents will lose health coverage. They will join the 195,000 currently uninsured state residents and Connecticut’s uninsured numbers will rise to the highest level in 20 years.

 

Losing coverage is not good for the uninsured, both their physical and financial health. But it is also a massive burden on their families, on hospitals and other care providers, on our communities, on our state’s economy, and on our public health. It doesn’t make sense.

 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes drastic cuts to the Medicaid program that now covers about a million Connecticut residents. The bill cuts funding to Connecticut because we cover immigrant children, even though we only use state funds for their care. (I’m not sure why it is any of Congress’s business how Connecticut spends our own money.) The bill creates more senseless red tape for both Medicaid members and for state agencies. The bill imposes work requirements for the 340,000 low-income Connecticut residents covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expansion. These are people with annual household incomes below $20,815 for a single person. We’ll also have to charge those low-income patients up to $35 for each service if the bill becomes law. 

The Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model might be one of the biggest steps in the right direction for recent Medicare policy. The eight-year voluntary nationwide program was launched last year by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), with the goal of supporting individuals living with dementia, as well as their unpaid caregivers.

 

The program’s focus is more important than ever, with an estimated 6.7 million people living with dementia. This amount is expected to skyrocket to 14 million cases by 2060, according to data made available by CMS.

 

On top of that, more than 11 million U.S. adults are unpaid caregivers for an older adult living with a form of dementia. Plus, roughly 80% of seniors with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias receive care in their homes, according to CDC data.

Jimmy Carter, who chose to forgo aggressive medical care for complications of cancer and frailty in February 2023, recently reached his one-year anniversary since enrolling in hospice care. During this time, he celebrated his 99th birthday, received tributes far and wide and stood by the side of his beloved wife, Rosalynn, who died in November 2023.

 

In contrast to the former president, his wife, who had dementia, lived only nine days under hospice care.

Palliative care physicians like myself who treat both conditions are not surprised at all by this disparity.

Hospice brings a multidisciplinary team of providers to wherever a patient lives, be it their own home or a nursing home, to maintain their physical and psychological comfort so that they can avoid the hospital as they approach the end of life.

(Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC) – The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) published the results of new research conducted by Transcend Strategy Group exploring perceptions of hospice care among underserved communities. This research compiles findings from a series of surveys of 2,000 people and explores perceptions of hospice care among Black, Hispanic, Asian American, LGBTQ+, and rural communities.  

 

Using the CONNECT acronym – Communication, Outcomes, Network, Nurture, Engagement, Collaboration, and Transparency – the report aims to help providers support equitable, inclusive, and comprehensive access to care and is part of the Alliance’s ongoing commitment to increasing access to hospice and home care through knowledge sharing, data collection, and collaborative discussion.  

 

Along with key research findings, CONNECT to Care offers recommendations for hospice providers to help increase understanding of hospice care and help overcome barriers to access.