Two Bayh bills enacted

U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., announced that Congress has passed his legislation to increase long-term care options for seniors and the disabled.

According to a statement released on Thursday, the long-term care legislation was included as part of the spending reconciliation conference agreement, which now awaits the President’s signature. “Although Sen. Bayh voted against the agreement in the Senate because it contains significant cuts to key health, education, and social programs that provide critical services to many American families,” the statement said, “he has worked for years to improve the availability and affordability of long-term care services.”

“It is essential that we provide long-term care options that help hard-working Americans protect themselves from losing their savings to pay for long-term care,” Bayh said. “I have serious reservations about this spending bill, but I am happy to announce my bipartisan plan for long-term care. It will provide better care options and financial security to many seniors as they get older, while at the same time helping states control their health care costs.”

Bayh’s legislation would give Americans the opportunity to purchase insurance to protect a certain amount of their savings and possessions in the event they exhausted their ability to pay for long-term care and needed Medicaid to pay for their services. The legislation would offer “significant savings to states,” the statement said, “because seniors with long-term care insurance are less likely to access Medicaid dollars to pay for their care.”

In addition, the statement said, Bayh’s plan would “for the first time” permit states to use their Medicaid dollars to pay for at-home and community-based long-term care without obtaining a federal waiver. “These options are frequently less expense than complete nursing home care and are often preferred by the client. Under current law, states can only provide home-based care to a limited number of people.

Fatherhood Act

The same spending reconciliation agreement also features one other Bayh bill, the Responsible Fatherhood Act, which would provide up to $50 million in mandatory funding this year for responsible fatherhood programs.

“The provision, which is part of a Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriages grant, will provide funding for state and private organizations to establish responsible fatherhood workshops,” the statement said. “Over the next five years, as much as $250 million could be directed toward such programs.”

The number of children growing up in homes without fathers has more than quadrupled over the past 40 years, the statement noted, from 5 million in 1960 to more than 24 million today. “At the same time, studies show that these children are five times more likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to commit a crime, twice as likely to drop out of school or abuse drugs or alcohol, and more likely to commit a crime, commit suicide, or become pregnant as a teenager.”

Posted 2/3/2006