Opinion: Cuts to Medicaid will set the U.S. back 35 years in dementia care
“We’re the richest country in the world. It’s callous to say it’s costing too much for poor disabled people to do chair yoga.”
In April 1990, in testimony to the joint congressional hearing titled “Alzheimer’s – The Unmet Challenge for Research and Care,” Hilda Pridgeon, a founder of the Alzheimer’s Association, recounted the challenges of working full-time for Control Data Corporation and caring for her husband, Al, who was living with dementia. The American health care system offered them no support. She summed up her family’s despairing, financially challenging experience: “People are afraid. I’m afraid. They are afraid of what will happen to them if they get this disease. They are even more afraid of how their families will cope.”
In the years to follow, America listened to Hilda Pridgeon and, over time, created supports for caregivers and persons living with dementia. Much of this progress in care has been delivered through programs that rely on Medicaid funding, the joint state and federal program that provides health care for people with low incomes and limited savings.
