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Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

texasobserver.org

21–30 of 52 posts

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#21
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you also structured your finances so that you can take care of aunts and uncles and in-laws and grandparents? What about older relatives without help that live in different states? I think you're making a lot of assumptions about others here, and it (and all of the edits you're making to your comment) seems kind of silly and unnecessary. Have a nice night.

Yes, I am willing and able to take in any family necessary, regardless of relation. If they’re unwilling to relocate, we are (I work from home, and we live light). I’m not saying it’s easy, by any means. I’m saying it’s necessary, unless you’re financially wealthy enough to outsource all of the support services elder care requires, which most people cannot (I am not at that wealth level, but I can take time off to pr…

> the wealth doesn’t exist to provide them white glove service until death. The solution is not startups, it’s community and family (along with having enough savings, FMLA, and vacation time).

The linked article seems to suggest that adult day cares actually work best when resources are limited, because they allow older people to be independent for longer (which is good regardless of the resources available):

> When they both retired in 2004, they tried staying at home, but found it hard to manage on their own due to Beatriz’s bad knees, Guillermo’s health woes, including quintuple bypass surgery, and their youngest son Ray’s schizophrenia and depression. > ... > The prevalence of adult day cares in the Valley, which is 90 percent Hispanic, is part cultural, part economic. Hispanic seniors are more likely than Anglos to live at home with their children or other family members. The Valley also has a persistently high poverty rate and a percentage of seniors with diabetes, heart disease, depression and dementia that is alarmingly higher than the national average. > ... > Adult day cares like those in the Valley can offer a kind of middle way between round-the-clock care by family caregivers — who frequently burn out and experience physical and mental problems themselves — and expensive, sometimes impersonal nursing home care.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is an unsolvable problem. The math just doesn't work anymore. Back when exponential population growth was more of an option you'd just have 6 kids to spread the cost of elder care across. It doesn't matter whether you care for your parents or hire someone to, the fact of the matter is there is increasingly just not enough young people to provide the elder care and also perform the other kinds of produc…

Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

I'm pro immigrant, but this doesn't solve the problem. At best it postpones it slightly because as soon as those immigrants become a little more prosperous they stop having so many kids too.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#23
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

Not to mention...those who are already here contribute billions of dollars to Medicare and Social Security every year -- just their existence in this country helps seniors (unfortunately, so much of the propaganda pointed at older Americans buries this fact).

I wonder if you'd have better luck if you told those older Americans that your goal was to redistribute the wealth of poor minorities from other countries to them.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

I'm pro immigrant, but this doesn't solve the problem. At best it postpones it slightly because as soon as those immigrants become a little more prosperous they stop having so many kids too.

If you "postpone" it often enough, that's basically the same as fixing it.

Postpone means "fixing it for now, but not for all time." Fix it for now, then let tomorrow figure out how to postpone it again.

That's only a problem if postponing it involves incurring worse future problems.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro immigrant, but this doesn't solve the problem. At best it postpones it slightly because as soon as those immigrants become a little more prosperous they stop having so many kids too.

If you "postpone" it often enough, that's basically the same as fixing it. Postpone means "fixing it for now, but not for all time." Fix it for now, then let tomorrow figure out how to postpone it again. That's only a problem if postponing it involves incurring worse future problems.

Whether or not it creates worse future problems depends primarily on whether or not it creates net tax revenue. So the new immigrants pay taxes, that helps. But presumably this new elder care is going to be funded in part or in whole by an increase in taxes.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#26

https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/Aging%20and%20Disability... Over the next 20 years, the number of elderly over the age of 85 is projected to go from 6.4 to 14.6 million. 10% of the population is over 65. That's a lot of people who don't work and need care in the next 2 decades. We are probably going to see a big uptick in Y combinator graduating companies who focus on elderly care.

I wonder what that will do for communicable disease, a much increased population of immune weakened people.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you "postpone" it often enough, that's basically the same as fixing it. Postpone means "fixing it for now, but not for all time." Fix it for now, then let tomorrow figure out how to postpone it again. That's only a problem if postponing it involves incurring worse future problems.

Whether or not it creates worse future problems depends primarily on whether or not it creates net tax revenue. So the new immigrants pay taxes, that helps. But presumably this new elder care is going to be funded in part or in whole by an increase in taxes.

Your argument comes across to me like "Let's not do a thing I agree would be short-term useful and helpful because it's all bad news, all the time." It sound super pessimistic.

Long experience suggests to me that fixing what can be fixed today makes tomorrow better. What a lot of people scoff at as bandaid solutions are very often perfectly good solutions.

Bandaids need to changed regularly while the wound heals. You don't slap a bandaid on and leave it there forever.

It's only worse than doing nothing if it isn't sterile and thereby introduces infection to the wound.

As long as your metaphorical bandaid solution is sterile, it's probably better than doing nothing.

Sometimes, fixing today is the best way to arrive at a brighter tomorrow.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I am willing and able to take in any family necessary, regardless of relation. If they’re unwilling to relocate, we are (I work from home, and we live light). I’m not saying it’s easy, by any means. I’m saying it’s necessary, unless you’re financially wealthy enough to outsource all of the support services elder care requires, which most people cannot (I am not at that wealth level, but I can take time off to pr…

> the wealth doesn’t exist to provide them white glove service until death. The solution is not startups, it’s community and family (along with having enough savings, FMLA, and vacation time). The linked article seems to suggest that adult day cares actually work best when resources are limited, because they allow older people to be independent for longer (which is good regardless of the resources available): > When…

As the article mentions, it works for Hispanic culture. TBD how the rest of aging America handles it.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

I'm pro immigrant, but this doesn't solve the problem. At best it postpones it slightly because as soon as those immigrants become a little more prosperous they stop having so many kids too.

Postponing the problem now gives more time to find ways to postpone more later, like fixing the societal issues that drive people to delay starting families well past when they do in other prosperous countries.

Re: Adult Day Cares in the Rio Grande Valley

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is an unsolvable problem. The math just doesn't work anymore. Back when exponential population growth was more of an option you'd just have 6 kids to spread the cost of elder care across. It doesn't matter whether you care for your parents or hire someone to, the fact of the matter is there is increasingly just not enough young people to provide the elder care and also perform the other kinds of produc…

Maybe we should start letting in all those young immigrants from demographics who have lots of children who want to move to the US.

Or maybe we could provide a better social safety net and more incentive/assistance for having children.
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