Honor The Promise

Honor the Promise is a campaign to build awareness about senior issues. With your help we are going to do everything we can to start a statewide debate and real discussion with Maryland's leaders around changes that are needed for current and future generations.

• What are the Issues?
• Read Our Platform
• What People are Saying
• Press Releases
• Contact Us!
• About LifeSpan
• CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Be a part of a growing movement and show your support for a Pro-Senior agenda in Maryland…

You can help right now by taking the pledge!

What are the Issues?

There are real problems when it comes to senior care in Maryland.

The age-wave is coming —  There is an age-wave approaching Maryland (and the nation) that will place incredible demands upon health care, housing and other assistance. By 2030, the number of Maryland seniors 65 years or older will have doubled. We aren’t ready.

We need more people working in senior care — Maryland is short by 17,000 registered nurses every year. That means nursing homes, assisted living and folks at home have to constantly scramble to find enough nurses and other essential clinical professionals (RNs, LPNs, CMTs and CNAs) to care for the growing senior population.

There’s too much paperwork — Both for caregivers at home and nurses in nursing homes, paperwork is consuming more and more of everyone’s time, which means less and less time is being spent on the really important stuff: actually providing care to those who need it.

Senior care is too expensive — Few people can afford senior care. It’s just too expensive. Most assisted living and nursing options cost more than $70,000 a year. That’s more than most have earned or saved. While long-term care insurance is one answer, just 10 percent of those needing it have purchased it.

The system is complicated — Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid have been under constant attack and will tap out as the senior wave engulfs our borders. In addition, draconian program eligibility restrictions force many seniors to either bankrupt themselves (and their families) or insist they be at death’s door before they “qualify.”

The options are limited and often the wait is long — Most people want to age gracefully in their community, yet some Maryland programs addressing these things have waiting lists of seven thousand or more seniors, and others wait years before apartments become available.

Public funding is capped — In many cases, Maryland pays senior care providers less than what it costs to care for impoverished residents in nursing homes—and the majority is impoverished. Medicaid for seniors has been under-funded in Maryland by more than $100 million in the past four years.