Pew Charitable Trusts

Dallas County property owners paid more than $467million in taxes last year to Parkland Health and Hospital System, the county’s only public hospital, to provide medical care to the poor and uninsured.

Their tax burden likely would have been lower if the state of Texas had elected to expand Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people. If more low-income patients at Parkland had been covered by Medicaid, then federal and state taxpayers would have picked up more of the costs.

Elsewhere in Texas and in most of the 20 other states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid, residents pay local taxes to help support hospitals that care for uninsured people. On top of that, they pay a portion of the federal taxes that help subsidize Medicaid in the 29 states and District of Columbia that did expand the program to cover more people — places where residents can expect to see lower local taxes as more people become insured.

“Taxpayers (in non-expansion states) are not going to get off the hook any time soon,” said Linda Quick, president of South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. Florida is one of the non-expansion states where localities pay property taxes to support indigent care.

Under the Affordable Care Act, and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decision, states have the option of extending Medicaid eligibility to all non-elderly adults who make less than 138 percent of the poverty line (an annual income of less than $16,242 for an individual). For the first three years, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs associated with new enrollees. After that, the federal share gradually declines until it reaches 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.

Nationwide, the cost of caring for uninsured people in non-expansion states between now and 2024 is projected to reach $266 billion if no new states decide to expand Medicaid, according to a report in April from the Kaiser Family Foundation. If all states decided to expand, that cost would drop by a third.

The Urban Institute reports in a study for the Kaiser Family Foundation that states and localities spent nearly $20 billion for uncompensated care in the United States in 2013. The federal government paid $33 billion and the private sector $700 million.

Last year, Texas hospitals spent $5.5 billion for uncompensated care, according to the Texas Hospital Association. The federal government reimburses hospitals for part of that cost through a $1 billion-a-year Medicaid subsidy known as the Disproportionate Share Hospital Allotments or DSH. As part of the Affordable Care Act, the DSH program will be sharply reduced starting in 2018. A recent Health Affairs article projected that Texas hospitals could see a 20 percent drop in DSH payments in the first year.

Lance Lunsford, a vice president with the Texas Hospital Association, said without that federal money, residents would have to foot the bill in the form of higher insurance premiums and, in jurisdictions with public hospitals like Dallas County, higher taxes. “Hospitals have no choice but to limit their exposure,” he said. “That means cost-shifting to consumers and taxpayers.”

Texas also receives $29 billion through a five-year Medicaid demonstration program, with about half of that money going to care for the uninsured. That program expires next year and the state is negotiating with the federal government over its renewal. The Obama Administration made it clear in April that it prefers Texas insure more people by expanding Medicaid than continuing to reimburse hospitals that serve the uninsured.

Despite that, the Texas Legislature ended its session earlier this month with no action on Medicaid expansion. If the federal government withholds funding for hospitals, local taxpayers will likely have to make up the difference.

“If you have the federal funding source going away, the money has to come from somewhere. These people aren’t going away,” said Teresa Coughlin, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

Texas Leaders Oppose Expansion

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, and the heavily Republican Texas Legislature remain opposed to Medicaid expansion.

Abbott calls Medicaid, “an already broken and bloated … program.” In March, members of the Republican Senate caucus wrote to President Obama reiterating their opposition to expansion. They noted that the “Texas Medicaid program has grown from 11 percent of the state budget in 1987 to 29 percent in 2015,” a trajectory they labeled “clearly unsustainable.”

The senators urged the Obama administration to grant the state more flexibility to control spending in Medicaid as it currently operates in the state. They asked that the state be able to impose work requirements on recipients, introduce “personal accountability requirements” such as cost-sharing, fees for missed appointments, the creation of health savings accounts, and the use of asset testing to determine eligibility for the program.

The decision not to expand has left Texas with more uninsured people than any other state: 1.7 million non-elderly adults. Texas also has the highest rate, 28 percent, of uninsured non-elderly adults.

The Urban Institute estimates that if Texas had expanded Medicaid in 2014, over the next 10 years it would have spent $5.7 billion as its share of Medicaid expenses for the newly eligible population, while drawing down nearly $66 billion in matching federal Medicaid funds.

The decision also means a continued tax burden for local citizens, including those in Dallas County. “Our taxpayers pay more to Parkland for uncompensated care than for all of our other services combined,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins, who presides over the five-member commission that governs the county. “It is also the fastest growing budget item.”

Jenkins, a Democrat, is among the highest profile politicians in the state to champion the case for expanding Medicaid, saying it would bring relief to county taxpayers by reducing what the county pays for uncompensated care.

Dallas County estimates that expansion would have extended Medicaid eligibility to an additional 133,000 county residents and would have brought an additional $580 million in Medicaid reimbursement. That money would not have eliminated all expenditures for uncompensated care because some, including undocumented workers, would remain uninsured.

In Harris County, where Houston is located, residents pay more than $500 million a year in real estate taxes for uncompensated care at its public hospitals. Bexar County, home of San Antonio, pays just short of $300 million a year for uncompensated care.

Texas Not Alone

Texas isn’t the only state where local taxpayers cover the costs. Thirteen of the 21 states that have not expanded Medicaid have public hospital districts where local tax dollars pay for uncompensated care.

Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, for example, receives $57 million a year from local taxpayers. The federal government’s expected cuts in uncompensated care reimbursement could eventually cost the hospital $45 million a year. Hospital CEO John Haupert said he does not expect the two counties that Grady serves to make up that loss, which could mean a cut in services.

“We would have to reevaluate the clinical services we could continue to supply and the clinical services that we couldn’t,” Haupert said. Georgia currently is working on a proposal that would keep some federal uncompensated care funds flowing in the expectation that more of the uninsured would receive comprehensive health care.

Mayors and county executives in other non-expansion states, including Republicans, have urged their states to expand coverage. One, Republican Mayor Adam O’Neal of Bellhaven, North Carolina, marched to Washington, D.C., twice in support of expansion.

Some legislators in some other non-expansion states have expressed concerns that continuing to provide indigent care will endanger the survival of many rural hospitals. Since 2010, 55 rural hospitals have already closed, according to the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. (The list is here.)

The Human Cost

DeShawn Bunton is one of Dallas County’s uninsured, who would qualify for Medicaid if the state expanded. A tiny, 51-year old, unemployed woman living in a one-bedroom, West Dallas apartment, Bunton has three ways of dealing with her lack of health insurance: visiting the emergency room, scavenging leftover medicine from friends or doing without treatment.

When her untreated diabetes makes her especially shaky and she gets a terrible taste in her mouth well known to diabetics, she goes to the nearest emergency room for treatment. During bad asthma attacks, she counts on friends to let her use one of their inhalers.

When she was hospitalized after having a heart attack on a train last year, Bunton passed on having a recommended stress test because she couldn’t afford it. She also left a prescription for a heart medicine unfilled.

Recently, she enrolled in a program at Parkland that allowed her to get back on all her medications. She is vastly relieved. “I was scared I was going to get sick at any time,” she said. “I had to watch my stress levels to make sure nothing upset me.”

The Parkland program is supported by local taxes. And Bunton now volunteers for the Texas Organizing Project, a grassroots organization pushing for expansion.

Read Original Article – June 24, 2015
Not Expanding Medicaid Can Cost Local Taxpayers

In Oklahoma, a 30-year-old state trooper was killed and another officer seriously injured after a car struck them on a highway as they investigated an accident.

In Kentucky, a 25-year-old volunteer firefighter died and his mother, also a firefighter, was injured when a tractor trailer sideswiped a fire truck and hit them as they tried to put out a car fire on a highway.

And in North Carolina, a 44-year-old tow truck operator helping a family whose van had broken down was struck and killed by a car on the interstate.

In all three incidents, which occurred in the past 10 months, the drivers responsible failed to move over or slow down when they passed.

Speeding past emergency vehicles is an everyday occurrence on the nation’s highways, even though every state has a “move over” law that requires drivers to slow down or switch lanes when emergency vehicles are on the scene. Failing to heed the laws can result in fines and serious criminal charges if someone is killed.

Despite the laws, safety experts say many drivers remain ignorant of them and that states need to do a better job of educating motorists about what’s at stake.

“We have to do a better job of getting the message out,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices.

All 50 states — but not the District of Columbia — have move over laws aimed at protecting police and emergency rescue workers. If a police car, fire engine or ambulance is parked on the road or shoulder and displays flashing lights, motorists generally must either move to the next lane if it’s safe, or slow to a safe speed. Some states define that as 20 mph below the posted speed limit. Others leave it to the driver’s discretion.

In July, Wyoming will become the 48^th state to include tow truck operators in its move over law. Only Louisiana and New Mexico offer no protections to roadside assistance workers, such as tow truck operators, according to Russell Martin, state relations manager for AAA.

Since 2010, state legislatures have approved 44 new measures enacting or improving move over laws, Martin said. Some have strengthened existing statutes, such as clarifying when a driver must move over, or hiked penalties for violators. Others have added additional types of vehicles, such as tow trucks.

State Rep. Harlan Edmonds, a Republican, said he sponsored the recent Wyoming law to include tow truck operators after a number of near misses in his state. Wyoming already had protections for law enforcement and emergency responders, requiring drivers to move to the next lane if it’s safe or cut their speed to 20 mph below the posted limit.

“Tow truck drivers were out there every day and they had less protection. I wanted to extend that to them,” Edmonds said. “It also gives members of the public protection because they might be standing around next to their car with the tow truck driver.”

Crash Data

The Emergency Responder Safety Institute, a national advisory group of public safety and transportation experts, estimates that on average, six to eight fire rescue and EMS workers are killed working in or near moving traffic each year, as are 10 to 12 police officers. The institute says that about 50 tow operators are killed. It doesn’t break out how many of those cases involve victims who were struck because of move over violations.

There are no comprehensive statistics on emergency and roadside workers who die or are seriously injured on highways because motorists fail to move over. No single government body is responsible for collecting and maintaining that information.

A 2013 study prepared for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials found that near-misses and deaths of those who work in and around highways are reported in different ways.

Some groups do some of their own tracking. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, for example, said its data shows that last year, six officers were killed in fatal crashes that appeared to involve move over violations.

“In this case, six lives could have been saved in 2014 if everyone had followed the law,” said Steve Groeninger, the fund’s communications director.

The International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said that the museum’s “Wall of the Fallen” memorial lists the names of 14 tow truck operators who have been struck and killed by a vehicle while working since July 2014.

“It’s a nationwide problem. It’s been ongoing for several years and it’s scary for our drivers,” said Jeff Roskopf, president of the Towing and Recovery Association of America, an industry trade group. “You never know when something’s going to happen, even if you’re just changing a flat tire.”

Education and Enforcement

Transportation safety experts say that move over laws won’t have an effect unless the public is aware of them.

A 2007 survey sponsored by the National Safety Commission found that 71 percent of Americans had never heard of move over laws.

“You have to have a host of strategies,” said Adkins of the governors’ highway safety group. “These laws have to be very visibly enforced. And the public needs to be educated.”

Ben Gorban, project coordinator for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said his group wants to raise awareness of current laws and the importance of abiding by them. It also aims to educate officers about where to position themselves during traffic stops to reduce their risk of being struck.

“If an officer is at the scene trying to investigate a crash or make sure that everybody is safe, they are not necessarily focusing on everything else around them,” Gorban said. “The last thing they need to be worrying about is somebody barreling down at 70 miles an hour who might not see them or have the time to react.”

Last year, the Tennessee Highway Patrol launched a Twitter public awareness campaign that went viral called #MoveOver after a Nashville police officer was struck and killed by a motorhome while trying to direct traffic around an overturned pickup truck. Just a week earlier, a trooper and a tow truck driver had been hit and killed at a crash site on a Florida interstate.

Colonel Tracy Trott, Tennessee’s highway patrol’s commander, said troopers are particularly at risk because they work on highways, where drivers are going fast.

“We get more worried about being run over than getting shot, to tell you the truth,” he said, noting that five Tennessee troopers have died in move over incidents since 1992.

Tennessee Highway Patrol records show that officers issued 1,380 move over citations in 2013 and 1,880 last year. The maximum penalty in Tennessee is a $500 fine and up to 30 days in jail.

Trott cautioned that while it’s important to spread the word about move over laws, drivers who try to obey can sometimes make the situation even more dangerous.

“Some people take the law literally, meaning they have to move over, rather than slow down and proceed with caution,” he said. “If people are breaking their neck to get into another lane when there’s too much traffic and the lane is full, they can cause a chain-reaction crash. That could cause cars to go out of control and head right toward the officer on the shoulder.”

Read Original Article – Published June 03, 2015
‘Move Over’ Laws Aim to Save Lives on the Highways

Almost two-thirds of the states are punishing tax delinquents with a digital version of the Colonial practice of locking lawbreakers in stocks set up in the village square.

It turns out publishing the names of tax scofflaws and the amounts they owe on the Internet works spectacularly well, bringing in millions to states eager for the revenue. In many cases, just the threat of being on the list is enough to get delinquent taxpayers to pay.

The technique is the flip side of tax amnesty, in which delinquent taxpayers are offered the chance to come forward voluntarily to escape high interest or penalties. The two processes are similar, however, in that states usually work out a payment plan for taxpayers.

The states that use public lists of delinquent taxpayers range from largely liberal ones such as California and New York to more conservative states such as South Dakota and Alabama.

In Vermont, the latest state to adopt the strategy, the legislature last year approved publishing the names of the top 100 individual and top 100 business tax delinquents. The state estimated it would collect $800,000 of an estimated $175 million in delinquent taxes in fiscal year 2015, which will end June 30.

The program has been even more successful than expected: Since the list was posted in January, Vermont has collected $1.3 million, according to Gregg Mousley, deputy tax commissioner. He predicted a total take of $1.5 million by the end of the fiscal year.

Under its plan, Vermont compiles the two lists, and then notifies the scofflaws by letter that their names are about to be published. According to Mousley, the letter often is incentive enough to prompt payment.

“At least half of the $1.3 million was collected before we put them on the list,” he said. “The threat of being on the list was a very good motivator.” Mousley predicted, however, that the pace of collections will slow and that the state will collect less in subsequent years because some of the buzz about the program will die down.

Mousley noted a quirk that also has been documented by researchers—the more money tax scofflaws owe, the less likely they are to be shamed into paying.

“When you are talking about large debts, you do tend to get some people who just don’t care,” he said. “It’s just not worth playing off their $450,000 or $1.2 million debt. Down on the lower levels, you get more of the Average Joe who is concerned.”

The effectiveness of the shaming tactic has exceeded expectations in other states, too.

Wisconsin officials estimated that publicly naming delinquents would allow them to recoup about $1.5 million annually when they first posted the information in January 2006. Instead, they’ve recovered between $11 million and $31 million annually, according to Stephanie Marquis, communications director at the Department of Revenue. Wisconsin collected $12 million in fiscal 2014 and has garnered $10.8 million so far in fiscal 2015, she said.

The Price of Shame

In their groundbreaking paper “Shaming Tax Delinquents: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in the United States,” researchers Ugo Troiano and Ricardo Perez-Truglia found that the “optimal policy” for collecting tax debts was shaming. But the price of the shame varied among taxpayers, according to Troiano.

“First, the price of the shame is not fixed,” he said in an interview. “If I am on the list for $200, it’s relatively easy to get off the list and not be shamed. But if the price is $10,000, it costs more to get off the list and it’s harder.

“Secondly, it’s possible that people who have smaller debts are different kinds of people than those who have higher debts, and who may not be responsive to shame. They may respond differently,” he said.

Vermont Rep. Janet Ancel, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was instrumental in passing the legislation. “Our challenge, which every state shares, is in compliance and collections. We felt it was worth a try,” she said. “It helped maybe a little bit that I’m a former tax commissioner and I appreciate how difficult it is to get people to pay what they owe. It turns out it’s been quite successful.”

Ancel said there was little resistance to the program when the legislature had hearings on it, and she doesn’t remember questions being raised about privacy. Initially, the list did not include the amount each delinquent taxpayer owed. But under pressure from the public and other lawmakers, the amounts were added to the list.

She said other legislatures considering similar bills should make sure the tax departments are careful about what they publish. “If you are going to make this information public, it needs to be correct. It takes time and attention from the department,” she said. “I think it’s a good collection tool. It’s one tool, but it’s a fairly significant one.”

California Collects

California was one of the first states to publish the names of delinquent taxpayers online, starting in 2007. Since then, the program has collected more than $414 million from taxpayers in arrears, according to Daniel Tahara, spokesman for the California Franchise Tax Board.

People and businesses pay because they “do not want their name published on a delinquent tax list that is publicly available,” Tahara said, adding that publishing the names is not the only tool state officials have. Other motivators include suspending driver’s licenses and other professional licenses for those who don’t pay, and working with other states on reciprocal agreements that can allow California access to taxpayer refunds from other states.

Jerome Horton, chairman of the California Board of Equalization, another tax administration entity, is a former state legislator who authored the state’s original “tax shaming” bill.

“It was a scarlet letter kind of concept,” Horton said.  “We wanted to know why they weren’t paying. This was a catalyst to figure out a way to do that.”

He said the state was pleasantly surprised to find that “if we educate folks about their responsibilities, most people will actually comply.” He acknowledged however, that some people aren’t thrilled about the exposure.

“Under public pressure, they accuse us of violating their privacy and a whole bunch of things,” he said. Some of the delinquents threaten to sue the state for invading their privacy, “but as soon as they talk to a lawyer they find out it’s not a violation of their privacy to publish that they owe us taxes. Then they call me and scream at me.”

In most of the states, once a taxpayer pays the money, his or her name comes off the list and another taxpayer is put on, creating a rotating file of scofflaws. In California, the list of the top 500 (half individuals and half businesses) is published twice a year. According to the Franchise Tax Board, 41 percent of those who were about to appear on the list made payment arrangements before their names were published, accounting for 205 individuals or businesses.

Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, said that while making tax delinquents’ names public may work, a larger question is whether that technique is being used because state tax collection departments are underfunded and under-staffed, making regular collections more difficult.

“A better strategy would be that state agencies have the ability to fairly and efficiently collect taxes in the first place,” he said.

Read Original Article – Published May 28, 2015
To Collect Revenue, Some States Put Tax Scofflaws in Virtual ‘Stocks’

We know that victims of elder abuse tend to be socially isolated, physically weakened and struggling to maintain their independence. They are reliant on family, friends or caregivers who violate their trust.

What we don’t know, because elder abuse is underreported, is how big the problem really is.

There are no official national statistics on how many older people are mistreated physically, emotionally or financially. Definitions and methods of addressing the issue differ state to state, and even county to county. Nor is there a dedicated stream of federal dollars for Adult Protective Services (APS) agencies, which most states rely on to combat elder abuse. Each state has cobbled together its own funding and bureaucracy.

Nevertheless, advocates and officials say there is little doubt the problem is growing, driven in large part by the tremendous growth in the elderly population. To address it, some states are training police and financial professionals to recognize and report elder abuse, and creating special teams of police, social workers and geriatric experts to investigate it. Cities, states and nonprofits are creating shelter housing for abuse victims, and some states are trying to quantify the cost to taxpayers when elders are fleeced out of their money and forced to turn to Medicaid.

“People need to understand what a huge, expensive and lethal problem elder abuse is,” said Kathleen Quinn, executive director of the National Adult Protective Services Association(NAPSA). Some researchers estimate that as many as one in 10 people over 60 is abused. That figure does not include financial exploitation, which costs victims at least $2.9 billion a year, according to MetLife.

“If we had a disease that affected 10 percent of the population, I think we’d look closely at it,” Quinn said.

Insufficient Resources

Elder abuse is a long way from achieving the political or budgetary recognition of child abuse or domestic violence, even as the baby-boom generation creates the largest senior population ever, with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day.

NAPSA recommends that caseworkers at Adult Protective Services agencies handle no more than 25 cases per month. But only 13 states met that standard in a 2012 survey. And in most places, there isn’t enough to money to properly train the caseworkers who are available.

Texas exceeded the caseload standard in the 2012 survey. Since then, however, the state has reduced average caseloads to about 25, thanks to steady funding and a decision to shift more serious mental illness cases away from APS and to the state’s mental health workers. The criteria APS agencies use to determine which cases to accept, such as whether the abused person must be 60 or 65, differ by state, influencing the caseload burden. The changes in Texas mean that APS caseworkers there now have time to assist with the care of clients’ pets.

The Texas APS division last year investigated 81,681 cases of older and disabled adults living at home, and has expanded its responsibilities to investigate abuse in state-operated and state-contracted settings.

“One of the reasons we have a strong program is due to legislative support over time,” said Beth Engelking, who heads Texas APS. One program that has spread through clinics in the state incorporates training and six basic screening questions to help health practitioners determine if a senior is being abused.

In Oregon, Attorney Gen. Ellen Rosenblum, a Democrat, is asking legislators to fund a state prosecutor dedicated to elder abuse – akin to existing posts for domestic violence and drunk driving. The position, including training and assisting local district attorneys, is essential to combat the “growing epidemic,” Rosenblum said.

And Michigan approved 10 laws in 2012 to strengthen elder protections and abuse investigations, penalties and reporting requirements.

A total of 29 states plus the District of Columbia considered legislation in 2013 to crack down on financial crimes against the elderly, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Eighteen laws and resolutions were adopted. (NCSL has not compiled numbers for 2014 or 2015.)

“All of the states recognize the scope and the nature of the problem. It comes up every time we talk to them,” said Damon Terzaghi, senior policy director at the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities. “We definitely see a lot of challenges both from the fact that we have a huge population turning 65, and the fact that people are living longer today than ever before, which creates new service needs that didn’t exist before.”

Inconsistent Reporting

Because states have different reporting methods and victims tend to be reluctant to notify authorities, it is difficult to pin down the extent of the problem. Research indicates the overwhelming majority of cases go unreported.

Michigan officials suspect that as many as 90,000 older adults are abused in their state each year, based on national projections—a number that far outstrips reported incidents. Criticized in recent years by the state auditor for shortcomings in training and investigative practices, Michigan’s APS investigated 13,511 cases last year, compared to 7,523 in 2010. The increase partly resulted from a new centralized state hotline, a “No Excuse for Elder Abuse” awareness campaign and new laws to protect vulnerable adults, officials said.

“Raising the awareness is something that is starting to change here in Michigan,” said Kari Sederburg, director of Michigan’s Office of Services to the Aging. “People are finally starting to wake up and realize we need to pay attention to this, that it’s a growing crime, and not just the physical abuse but also financial exploitation.”

But the wide variation in municipal and agency reporting systems has hindered the state’s ability to grasp the extent of the problem, she said. Michigan lawmakers recently approved $1 million to explore the feasibility of a statewide reporting system, and to support training, awareness and education efforts. Thirty-three out of 83 Michigan counties have adopted voluntary state standards for joint investigations by agencies.

Elder abuse is “an insidious and tragic social problem,” a New York study of cases across the state concluded in 2011. The report, spearheaded by the nonprofit group Lifespan and based on more than 4,156 interviews with seniors, estimated that some 260,000 New Yorkers suffered elder abuse in a year, not including nursing home residents and people with dementia.

But officials from New York’s Office of Children and Family Services said they could not quantify the problem, or even their own cases beyond a 1997 reference on the state website indicating fewer than 17,000 elder abuse reports annually. The state is working on an update, a spokeswoman said.

“This is a huge issue for older adults that largely goes unrecognized,” said Ann Marie Cook, Lifespan’s president. Lifespan helped the state design and implement a program to prevent and swiftly intervene in financial abuse cases, using integrated teams of law enforcement, APS caseworkers, forensic accountants, geriatric health experts and other specialists.

In one promising public-private arrangement in Sacramento, California, private hospitals paid $25,000 each for county-assigned social workers to assist seniors at risk of abuse or neglect who were frequent visitors to emergency departments. The social workers remained involved with the seniors after they were discharged from the hospital to ensure they got the care they needed. Despite promising early results, the program “fell through the cracks” last year because supporters couldn’t prove it was worth its rising costs, said Debra Morrow, county director of Senior and Adult Services.

Several states are participating in a project run by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to develop the first national reporting and data system. The data will help clarify the scope of abuse and other basic information, laying groundwork for potential targeted policies and programs, ACL officials said.

Elder abuse at the federal level has gained a higher profile under Kathy Greenlee, the ACL administrator. It will be one of the major topics addressed at the White House Conference on Aging anticipated this summer. And advocates hailed President Barack Obama’s 2010 authorization of the first dedicated funding for APS, a comparatively restrained $100 million a year for four years. Congress approved the sum as part of the Elder Justice Act, which also incorporated other elder abuse planks and the ACL national reporting project, but has yet to set aside the money to implement it.

Read Original Article – Published May 26, 2015
Elder Abuse a ‘Huge, Expensive and Lethal’ Problem for States

Read Original Article – Published May 21, 2015
Where Has Housing Grown the Fastest Since 2010?