Issue Position: On Our Elders

Issue Position

A society should be judged by how we treat our people at the "bookends" of life, as children and as elders.

In The Legislature, I Will Fight For:

-Elders have a right to age in place. We need legislation that stops the one-way conveyor belt from hospitals to rehab facilities to nursing homes. There is a law on the books currently that directs hospitals to counsel patients about their home care options as they prepare to leave the hospital. The legislature should work to ensure that law is enforced. Nursing homes should be the last resort, not the first.

-Spouses must be allowed to be caregivers. Right now in Massachusetts, spouses are not eligible to be paid as personal care attendants. This is illogical, especially when we consider that paying a spouse to care for their loved one will also help stabilize the family economically.

-Caregivers must receive fair compensation. In order to ensure quality elder care, as well as to provide fair compensation and living-wage employment, all home care aides must earn at least $15 per hour.

-Elders deserve economic security. A recent study by the University of Massachusetts measured the Elder Economic Security index, which is essentially the resources that elders require in order to stay in their homes and meet their individual needs. Sixty-one percent of elderly individuals in Massachusetts live below the index cut-off line for minimum required resources. That means their income doesn't allow them to age in place independently while meeting basic needs. In fact, because of our relatively high cost of living, Massachusetts is the second worst state in the nation for elder economic security, second only to Mississippi. The findings from this report triggered a legislative elder-security commission that made a number of important recommendations, all of which I support. These recommendations include lifting the age cap on the Earned Income Tax Credit and ensuring access to a number of critical government programs like LIHEAP (the low-income heating assistance program).

-Elders deserve both life and death with dignity. Elders must be supported in their efforts to make plans for health care proxies and other contingencies, and we must allow them to choose the end-of-life circumstances that are right for them. The legislature must create adequate fail-safes to ensure that no one is coerced into inappropriate end-of-life care.

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