kyburg | Post From Tumblr "Meals on Wheels programs are stuck

“Meals on Wheels programs are stuck in an appropriations purgatory where many don’t receive enough money to stay at capacity, much less expand, but they’re too adored to be cut much without political reprisal. Better data has emerged in the past five years—and its delivered a compelling case for the programs. In 2013, Kali Thomas, a public health researcher at Brown University, published a paper that found “if all states had increased by 1 percent the number of adults age 65 or older who received home-delivered meals in 209 under title III of the OAA, total annual savings to states’ Medicaid programs could have exceeded $109 million.” Most of the savings would come from keeping seniors in their homes and out of nursing homes, which are more expensive. Ninety-two percent of Meals on Wheels recipients say the service lets them live at home. The Medicaid savings were uneven—some states saved millions while other lost out—but Meals on Wheels likely saves billions in Medicare spending too. In 2016, Thomas found that receiving home-delivered meals was correlated with a 30 percent decrease in falls for seniors who’ve fallen before. Falls—in which seniors can break a hip, or worse—cost Medicare $31 billion in 2015 alone. What’s more, collaboration between MOWA and Brown University found that rates of hospitalization and emergency-room use decreased for patients getting Meals on Wheels compared to those who weren’t. For context, one night in the emergency room costs the same as a year of home-delivered meals. This evidence is in line with macroscopic public health findings that countries that spend more on social services than health services tend to have longer life expectancies and decreased rates of premature mortality. Meals on Wheels could help address the greatest health care and demographic challenge Americans face this century—that is, if it were treated as more than a pet program or hollow political prop. Until then, millions of seniors will starve in the richest country in history.”

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We’re letting meals on wheels, a great program, slowly whither and die.
(via dendroica)

Meals on Wheels is a total LIFESAVER. And not just for elderly, it’s for anyone who needs eyes (and a hot meal) delivered daily.

That’s all it is. You ought to see what that does for a life.

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