What is Obama doing for caregivers?

My concerns about the political world is the abundance of people who are unaware that the portion of social security that is endangered is the portion covering the disabled. That is the main reason why you will never get out of it as much as you put in. But that is a good idea. Do we really want to go back to seeing kids with no parents, out on the street with no support? Expensive to care for adults being left alone with no suport. .

The Romney ticket is firmly committed to changing medicare and social security, which are not just programs for the aged. Ask anyone with a handicapped child how important these safety net issues are. Many posters here have no safety net for their parents other than social security and Medicare. If these were altered many of us would have pretty insurmountable care giving decisions to make. I am grateful that I was able to secure my pension, as a teacher well enough up to this point in time, that I am confident that I will not end up destitute for taking time to care for my mother. I am grateful for her teachers pension, medicare insurance, and an elderbreak on the house taxes. These are important factors that are allowing me to remain in her home caring for her.

I would encourage people to look at the candidates from the issues that are important to you. For me it is clear that the Obama/Biden Democratic ticket is the most likely agent to allow me to stay in the middle class through this difficult period of my life.

I am grateful that preventive care is free now, so that I can get my mom her flu shots, teeth cleaning and other preventive care seamlessly. I am grateful that when my Cobra runs out, there will be an insurance pool formed in my state for me to choose a carrier to buy insurance from. This is the insurance program, designed by Romney, that was the basis of the National Health Care Initiative passed under Obama. I would like to give Romney credit, but he does not want it.

I hope Mrs Obama's interest in health of children and families and the health and welfare for the vets will translate in efforts to smooth process that we must battle to get our families what they need to thrive.

I am sad that the manufacturing and mill trades that many of our elders were able to work in have moved abroad. That is a huge loss that makes my generation look like a bunch of bums. There is no steel mill to walk into and know you got a job, there is no dock to go join a ship on.

Hourly wages are very depressed right now and perhaps that is a bonus to us as it means we can afford care givers-- if we can afford care givers..... On the other hand I believe it has caused my relatives to de-value what i am contributing.

I believe Mrs. Obama understands what it is like to work full time and care for her parents and her children. She was an extremely successful lawyer before she entered the White House. She surrendered her law degree so that she would not have to do an continuing education while Barrack was in office. She will resume her career when he leaves office.

Joe Biden's wife is a college professor and continues to work full time.

So many of the posts here are "where can I look for help" and generally the answers given a civic offices and agencies. Other people believe those people sitting in our communities on government salaries are "Big Government", but I do not. First off they are people with middle class incomes that are helping my local grocery store stay open and second they are important to create community and support and healthy families.

I am surprised that Mrs Romney has not spoken out about access to health care as she has a chronic disease. I know he has good benefits so possibly it is not a barrier they have experienced.

Good answer Cat. If we are going to ask what the current president is doing for caregivers, let's go back and ask what the prior presidents did. Presdent Clinton pushed the Family Medical Leave Act through. Anyone else have some info based on facts not political bias? It seems to me, at least in my state, that the party that wants to cut programs that help famililes is not the party of the current president. NBC news tonight did a feature on caregivers and the AARP new public service ads to bring attention to caregivers. USA Today also did a story do an internet search for "caregiver's aarp public service commercials". My question to fellow caregivers is: what do we want ALL POLITICIANS to do for caregivers? Most of us can't even get help from our own families to assist us.

mrsribbit, the original proposal was for healthcare to be handled pretty much as Medicare is now, only the insurer would be outside the federal government and everyone would pay for the insurance, probably through increased taxes -- the proposal never made it off the ground floor. Everyone feared higher taxes and the involvement of the federal government. Few stopped to reason how much they pay for insurance now. This money would be used to fund the program, which would have been handled by companies outside the government, as most of Medicare is.

One problem that was not popular is that it gave tremendous power to the insurer to contain the cost of healthcare. Hospitals, etc., certainly didn't want that. Another problem is the mountain of paperwork, which is why many doctors don't like dealing with Medicare and Medicaid now.

There were horror stories about the terrible health care in Canada, a country with universal coverage. My friends in Canada couldn't figure out why things were being said. They have the option of having a private doctor if they want, but most go with the free care and have their own doctors. One of my friends from Canada wrote me that he always takes out traveler's insurance when he goes to the USA. He goes to Hawaii every year. He said if he were to become sick when he was here, our system might wipe him out financially. And he is very comfortable financially. Canadians can fear getting sick in the US. I understand. I have BC/BS, but know my copays could still wipe me out if something serious happened.

The cost of medicine is a problem that needs to be dealt with in the US. People stay in jobs they don't like so they won't lose coverage. Unexpected illnesses can put families into bankruptcy. And increasingly, family estates are being totally spent paying healthcare costs. IOW, the healthcare system is winding up with everything in the end.

Unlike one of the posters, I want to go on record that I REALLY WANT MORE GOVERNEMENT HELP AS A CAREGIVER. I'm not gonna be sold by that "pull yourself up by your bootstraps, find solutoins for yourself bs" . The USA is a great country and if family values are important, then programs that support families should be also. With costs as they are today, there is no way you can care for an elderly person without govt help, unless you are extremely wealthy, or were fortunate enough to be able to purchase good long term care insurance for them when it was still cheap and would actually cover something. Just as we provide schools for children, we need to provide quality places for our elderly, whether it is funding to help keep them at home or govt regulation of assisted living and nursing home facilities so we can have peace of mind that if we can't care for them at home, they are being properly cared for somewhere else. My first request of any politician: Provide families with the same funds or even 70 percent of the Medicaid funds you are willing to pay a nursing home business for providing less quality care than they could get if they could remain in their family homes.

One thing he wanted was universal (single payer) health care. By the time the bill made it out of the house, it was nothing like what was wanted. No one can convince me that universal coverage is not the way to go. We are told our quality of healthcare will go down and we won't be able to choose our own doctors. My only response is "WHAT quality?" and why couldn't we choose our own doctor? Medicare is universal care and it works for patients usually.

One question I would ask is what a government can do to make it easier for caregivers.

So Cal 101
What hood? that is the most amazing choice of words.. He went to Punaho High School, lived in a lovely high rise with his grandmother the bank vice president. Then he attended three prestigous private colleges.... What "hood" is he from? What hood has he been in to collect these thugs? Such a Alice in Wonderland world we are in right now. I think that hood is called Harvard Law, guess your kin went to Yale.

I guess it boils down to how people define family and how people define government. I believe that both should serve as our insurance and our safety net. I have bought lots of long term care insurance, fire insurance, health insurance and disability insurance.Ii do believe that I need to do my part. But for me the government is at it's best when the central issues are the ones we do better when we cooperate-- roads, sewers, schools, food quality, water quality, air quality, trade and money systems, defense, police fire. The problem is the agencies that do these jobs find that all systems are affected by the humans involved. Take water quality, if people are pouring motor oil down the drain, or are camping in the gullies and shitting in the stream it becomes an issue of public safety for the water quality managers. Who do they send out to encourage these folks to behave in a way that is good for everyone? What if the people are making these choices because of igorance or poverty or illness? That is why the social net of health care and housing gets created. The firefighters do not want to take the orphans home from each fire and care for them. The police do not have a solution as to what to do with the drunk who is sleeping on the steps of the school. I am in support of the firefighter, police and water quality guy. If they think we need more social services to get the world to a good place I need to support that.
Life is uncertain and sometimes it is so unfair. That is when we need to carry each other.
When the system is set up so that people can not earn enough to create a tax base that supports the social services we would like to have, local governments go broke and social services erode. That is what we are experiencing.That is the reality in the third world. My friend who lived in Nigeria lives with no fire service. When a house catches fire they get everyone out and let it burn to the ground helplessly. That is not a society I favor.

I take issue with the idea that caregivers should look to the government for help.
We, as caregivers, are the epitome of strength. We are better equipped to develop our own strategy and far surpass the ineffective, unprodutive, wasteful "help" a massive bureaucracy would ever deliver.

ganswilliams, I don't want to get personal, but since you said you take issue with the idea that caregivers should look to the govt for help, can you tell me how you are getting by without any govt help (like Medicare)? B/c , as someone who considers myself pretty independent and resourceful,, worked the same job over 25 years and who was working full time and suddently faced with a parent who could not care for themselves ,who did not have a long term insurance policy or lots of assets, I'd like to know, what were my choices, other than turning my back on my parent (is this the R solution? which by the would would have made the govt pay for full time medicaid nursing home placement?, unless the R solution involves sending the poor elderly into the forest to die alone? ) if I didn't have the meager 20 hours of govt supplied aides i now get , I would have to quit my job entirely. So why do you say I shouldn't expect my govt to help me when I have been a loyal citizen and taxpayer for years? I don't get a choice in whether my tax dollars go to wars or to pay for others mtg or loan mistakes so why should others tell me that I shouldn't get help for caregiving or help with health insurance?

As Cat said above...caregiving is not political, at least it shouldn't be. No party...Republican, Democrat, Libertarian...nor any President, or Congress has done anything which focuses on caregiving. If fingers are going to be pointed for blame...it should be pointed at all of our lawmakers.