The Health Care System Isn't Ready to Replace Aging Caregivers

Politico Pro is reporting that the first generation of developmentally disabled adults who grew up at home, and not in an institution, have now reached middle-age. Unfortunately, they are facing a health care system that is largely unprepared to care for them as their baby boomer parents age out of that role. Many have never spent much time away from their parents and are on long waitlists for state services. The problem dates back to the 1970s when a deinstitutionalization movement took hold that argued that developmentally disabled children and adults are better off when integrated into a community than warehoused in a group home setting. Since then, autism diagnoses have become far more common, those with disabilities have lived longer than ever before, and babies born prematurely survived at significantly higher rates. In a nutshell, far more people have needed services, will be needing services in the years to come, and governments have struggled to keep up. To be sure, some states have been trying to get out in front of the "demographic tsunami." Tennessee, for instance, revamped its entire long-term care program three years ago, for the first time offering home and community-based services to people with a physical disability, which were previously only available to people with intellectual disabilities.