Many Elderly Can’t Afford Healthcare
A large swath of California's senior citizens are between a financial rock and hard place, earning not enough to cover their basic needs but too much to qualify for badly needed government assistance, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.
The study, which was unertaken by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, paints an unsettling picture suggesting that many older Californians will not be able to afford the healthcare services they will need as they age.
Its authors use an alternative – and many would argue, more accurate -- gauge to determine poverty levels among those over 65 living in California. The Elder Index has concluded that a single elderly adult living alone in the Golden State requires an annual income of $23,364. That's more than double the current federal poverty level of $10,890 a year for an individual.
As a result of using the Elder Index, the study has concluded that 772,000 elderly in California held households and represent what it referred to as the “hidden poor.” Those are people who need government assistance to make ends meet but do not qualify due to income bars. The study concludes that in some mostly rural California counties, as many as 40% of single elderly adults and 30% of couples would be considered the “hidden poor.”
“Many of our older adults are forced to choose between eating, taking their medications or paying rent,” said D. Imelda Padilla-Frausto, a UCLA graduate student researcher at the center and lead author of the study. “The state might be emerging from a recession, but for many of our elder households, the downturn seems permanent.”
Latinos, one of the fasting growing population demographics in California, is particularly hard hit by that phenomenon. Some 69% of single Latinos over the age of 65 had incomes below the Elder Index. That compares to 64.5% of Asian-Americans, 62.3% of African-Americans and 43.6% of whites. The rates are considerably lower in households with married couples, but still range from more than 20% among whites to nearly 50% among Latinos.
Another particularly vulnerable group are elderly Californians raising grandchildren. Among that group, 35.3% had incomes below the federal poverty level, but 72.8% had incomes below the Elderly Index.
“Older adults raising grandchildren or housing adult children have taken on more financial burdens with limited earning capacity and are living right on the edge of a cliff,” said Steven P. Wallace, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and another co-author of the study. “They have few options, and one unexpected expense can put them right over.”
The study made a variety of recommendations to boost the incomes of elderly Californians. They included raising the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and state supplementation (SSP) monthly cash payments, and restoring the cost-of-living adjustments to the SSP, which have been suspended since 2007.
The study also suggested not dropping SSI payments if the elderly are living in households that also contain adult children.
As for healthcare services, the study recommended raising the income cutoff for additional financial assistance for Medi-Cal enrollees from the current 100% of the federal poverty level to 200%.
