Extensions of Remarks 14073

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, the long-term care debate continues to grow as a key health care issue and it will continue to grow more in the coming decade as Americans live longer. Fortunately, more attention is starting to be focused on long-term care; the bad news is that there is a tremendous gap in ideas and solutions to make sure every family has access to affordable, quality long-term care when it is needed. In Pennsylvania already 1.9 million seniors and nearly 220,000 individuals with disabilities rely on Medicare to meet longterm costs, and 84,743 Pennsylvanians are in nursing homes. In the next decade, the first of the ‘‘baby boomers’’ will reach 65 sending the need for long-term care much higher very quickly. While long-term care is usually thought of in terms of the elderly, two of every five Americans will need long-term care at some point in their lives, often because of an injury or disability as well as advanced age. It is therefore, essential that the health care system provide families with affordable, available options for long-term care—options that provide the kind of quality everyone wants to see for a family member or friend. A major trend in long-term care is away from nursing homes, to keep people in their homes or with family as long as possible, to look at alternative living arrangements and to stress community support and involvement. As we sort through this issue, it is imperative that long-term care promote individual dignity, maximize independence and self-sufficiency and be provided in the least restrictive setting—that includes providing home and community based, flexible, benefits and services. The trend in long-term care is moving away from institutions like nursing homes. This is well illustrated in Pennsylvania where most people, particularly the elderly, dread the idea of leaving their home and family and moving to a nursing home. Consumers have become more sophisticated and are looking for alternatives of service and care that will allow people to retain their independence, including staying in their home or with family-member care givers. Research suggests that a highly important cultural change is at work—a trend toward home and community based long-term care services. This means that government must recognize this important shift and encourage the expansion of home and community-based care programs and services. While current government policies support and promotes public funding for institutionalized care (the type of care that those in need do not prefer) society has come to rely almost exclusively on informal family-care givers to provide the type of care desired by the majority of care recipients. Researchers estimate that the value of care giving responsibilities regularly assumed by family members and friends exceeded $200 billion in 1997. In comparison, federal spending for formal home care in 1997, was $32 billion, with an additional $83 billion for nursing home care. Informal or family-care givers provide more long-term care and support, free of charge and with limited support, than the federal government in all settings combined. The obvious question becomes: how about paying or providing relief to the informal or family-care giver? I am taking steps to do just that by introducing legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a $1,200.00 tax credit for care givers of individuals with long-term care needs. A $1,200.00 tax credit is the logical first step designed to recognize and compensate care givers for the long-term cost associated with informal or family-care giving.