Alzheimer Caregiver Praises Senate Tax Credit Plan

Alzheimer's Association
Wednesday, 28 March 2001

Our nation needs to address the financial problems of long term care in the President's upcoming tax plan, according to Vienna, Virginia resident Bill Kays, a retired 69-year old whose wife has been living with Alzheimer's for ten years. "We have to make sure that a family unlucky enough to get hit with something like Alzheimer's is not financially devastated," Kays testified before the U.S.Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, March 27, 2001.

Kays cared for his wife at home for six years before needing to find a long-term care home for her -- because she was never going to get better. "She needed everything at that point – bathing, feeding, dressing and toileting. When I found out that long term care housing would cost between $4,000 and $6,000 per month, I nearly fainted," Kays testified.

After a lengthy search he finally found a perfect place at a reasonable cost, but it was 57 miles from his home in Northern Virginia. Three months after she moved there he suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Doctors told him the heart attack was caused by his stress as a caregiver.

"The situation is getting worse and I praise Chairman Grassley, Senator Graham and others for their proposed $3,000 caregiver tax credit and tax incentive for long term care insurance," Kays testified. "But the problem cannot be fixed by these alone. We have to develop a better combination of public and private insurance that families and the nation can afford."

Even if Kays had bought a long-term care insurance policy, the benefits probably would have been exhausted by now because of the length of his wife's illness. "Every once in awhile I'll get a telephone call at home from someone who wants to sell me a long term care insurance policy. When I tell them that I am 69 years old, that I have a heart condition and that my wife has Alzheimer's disease and is in a nursing home, the caller quickly hangs up."

The money Kays and his wife saved for retirement barely covers her care. "Medicare doesn't cover the cost of her home and we're above the Medicaid level. We have no long term care insurance and my out-of-pocket expenses are running $25,000 per year, not counting the cost of traveling to visit her twice a week," Kays testified.

"I have met many who have had to spend themselves into poverty in order to qualify for Medicaid. My heart goes out to them," Kays continued.

Alzheimer's strikes one in ten Americans over age 65, and half of all people age 85 and over. Today, 4 million people suffer from Alzheimer's. That number will increase to 14 million as babyboomers enter the age of high risk.

Kays testified about the importance of the quality of long-term care.

"Long term care is about more than just helping families pay for care. It's about assuring the quality of that care. And the biggest single factor that determines quality is staffing.

"Taking care of a person is some of the hardest and most important work we ask people to do. We need to recognize them for that work, pay them enough to support their own families, give them a manageable work load, and make sure they have the training it takes to understand how to care for a person."

The Alzheimer's Association is the premier source of information and support for the four million Americans with Alzheimer's disease. Through its national network of chapters, it offers a broad range of programs and services for people with the disease, their families, and caregivers and represents their interests on Alzheimer-related issues before federal, state, and local government and with health and long-term care providers.

For more information, or to contact Alzheimer's Association, see their website at: www.alz.org