Millions of Americans are facing the daily battle of providing care for their own children while simultaneoulsy providing care for ailing parents. These caregivers have descriptively been termed the "sandwich generation." The physical, emotional, financial, and time demands on these caretakers is huge. Check out this video in which the Winokur family shares what it is like to be part of the sandwich.There are important family and social policy implications for the sandwiched family. The National Family Caregiver Assoication states "the value of the services family caregivers provide for "free" is estimated to be $306 billion a year. That is almost twice as much as is actually spent on homecare and nursing home services combined ($158 billion)." How does social policy support or fail to support these family caregivers?
You know social policy seems to get closer to really supporting these sandwiched families, but hasn't quite reached it yet. I think that perhaps some policy makers should spend a day with a caregiver and see how easy it is. Maybe then they will be more eager to help out via policy.
ReplyDeleteAs the baby boomers reach retirement and start to raise the need for more care and there are more people in the same situation as the Winokur family, i think there will be more of a push in policy to support these families. Right now I think that social policy is failing to support those families in this situation. Medicaid and medicare are only available to those who qualify. It certainly is not enough!
ReplyDeleteTreating care provision only from a medical standpoint is one big flaw in our system. There are many social needs for both caregiver and care receiver that are rarely addressed. Activities for home bound seniors, is one example.
ReplyDeleteEven when they have caregivers, those caregivers may lack financial or emotional resources to provide stimulating, high quality day to day activities that both the care receiver and they could enjoy.
How about tax credits for those that provide care for their aging parents? As the video mentioned, the mother wouldn't miss the experience, even though it was hard. By providing financial support for in-home medical care, would the tax burden be less if more people cared for their parents instead of having them in a managed facility? Would this also provide some intergenerational benefits? Some seniors with difficult conditions may not be able to live in a family home, but many with less severe conditions could.
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