The SCAN Foundation

The SCAN Foundation's Vice President of Policy and Communications Gretchen Alkema, PhD, LCSW, is profiled in the 2010 Gerontological Society of America Member Spotlight.  Below is an excerpt from her interview:

Q: Do you have any tips for emerging gerontologists?
A: Stay open to possibility and creativity and do not let yourself get locked in to a static way of viewing your career trajectory or the world in which we live.   Remember that in its most fundamental form, aging is living and the essence of living is change whether we can see it or not.  I encourage all emerging gerontologists to read two books: “What are Old People For?” by Bill Thomas and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. 

To read the rest of the feature, please click here.

Washington Post Bloggger Ezra Klein breaks down the CLASS program and provides a direct link to The SCAN Foundation's Long-Term Care Policy Simulator in a Thursday, July 29 post.  He writes, "Helpfully, the SCAN Foundation has created a Web applet that allows you to design your own version of the CLASS Act and see what the effect on the budget deficit, coverage of the disabled, premiums, and so forth would be. You can specify how much of the plan you want to fund through premiums, what subsidies you want the poor to receive, what average benefit you prefer and more. It's the sort of thing I wish existed for every Research Desk question, so check it out, play around and settle on your ideal proposal."

To read the blog in its entirety, please click here.

The blog was also picked up at Bullfax.com.

A July 22 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle written by Dr. Bruce Chernof, president and CEO of The SCAN Foundation, highlights the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program.

CLASS is a provision of the new health care law that creates a voluntary, federally administered insurance product that working adults can purchase in order to help cover long-term supports and services. Titled, “Reform eases long-term health care woes,” Dr. Chernof points out that CLASS needs broad participation in order to be successful, and it creates a conceptual shift away from needing care in old age as an experience rooted in poverty with limited choices toward one of independence, control and dignity.

To read the op-ed in its entirety, please click here.

The op-ed was also picked up by the California HealthCare Foundation's California Healthline and Kaiser Health News' Daily Health Policy Report.

The blog, "Putting the Care in 'Obamacare in California and Beyond,'" by Micah Weinberg of the New American Media Foundation describes the opportunities that health reform creates to improve the quality of care that Californians receive and the value they get for their medical spending.  Weinberg refers to Lisa Shugarman of The SCAN Foundation, as a healthcare leader who sees  the new law as an opportunity to "raise awareness of provisions such as the CLASS Act, that could provide additional funding for long-term care."

To read the blog, please click here.