Elder Law Prof Blog

University of Iowa offers free online course on health care reform

In what may be a one-of-a-kind move, the University of Iowa College of Law is offering all comers the opportunity to attend a free online 14-week course on the nation's new health care reform law. Already, nearly 500 people have reportedly expressed an interest in attending.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~ibl/HealthLawColloquium.shtml

The class will be broadcast on Thursday afternoons for those who wish to participate in live sessions of the distance education course and can be seen on video thereafter. A web page at the Iowa Innovation, Business and Law Center provides links to the sessions and the class. "This is a very important piece of legislation, so we thought we would  experiment with distance learning," professor Sheldon Kurtz, who developed the course, tells the National Law Journal. "We believe we have an outreach mission that involves informing the public about policy issues."

New from the MEDICAL-LEGAL STUDIES eJOURNAL

Table of Contents

Medical Negligence Dispute Resolution: A Role for Facilitative Mediation and Principled Negotiation?

Tony Bogdanoski, University of Sydney - Faculty of Law

The Right to Silence Protects Mental Control

Dov Fox, Yale Law School

Review of 'Heath Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context'

Michele Mekel, Southern Illinois University

Turning Points in China's Aids Response

Joan Kaufman, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

R(Purdy) v. DPP and the Case for Wilful Blindness

Kate Greasley, affiliation not provided to SSRN

New from ElderLaw Studies eJournal

Table of Contents

Care/Work: Law Reform to Support Family Caregivers to Balance Paid Work and Unpaid Caregiving: A Study Paper Prepared by the British Columbia Law Institute & Canadian Centre for Elder Law

Canadian Centre for Elder Law, affiliation not provided to SSRN

Debt of the Elderly and Near Elderly, 1992-2007

Craig Copeland, Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)

Fiscal Incidence When Both Individual Welfare and Family Structure Matter: The Case of Subsidization of Home-Care for the Elderly

Haizhen Mou, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy
Stanley L. Winer, Carleton University - School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University - Department of Economics, CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research), International Centre for Economic Research (ICER)

Aging Asia’s Looming Pension Crisis

Donghyun Park, Asian Development Bank - Economic Research

Regrettably Unfair: Brooke Astor and the Other Elderly in New York

Joseph A. Rosenberg, CUNY School of Law

The Estate and Gift Tax Implications of Self-Settled Domestic Asset Protection Trusts: Can You Really Have Your Cake and Eat it Too?

Phyllis Smith, Florida A&M University College of Law

Judith Johnson on the need for end-of-life planning (Huffington Post)

Both individually and collectively, we are paying an enormous emotional and financial price for being silenced by our society's taboo against talking about death and dying. Other societies educate their members about the reality of death and the processes of dying and grieving. We do not. We are left to figure it out for ourselves, relying on doctors and funeral directors to tell us what to do once we are face to face with death. We don't know what to say, what to do, how to cope or to grieve. Most of us simply let "the experts" lead us around by the nose -- too stunned to take charge of the situation ourselves. Consider the following observations and facts about the costs we bear for this:

(1) Eighty percent of Americans do not put their personal affairs in order before they die.

(2) In 2009, Medicare paid 55 billion just for doctor and hospital bills for the last two months of patients' lives. That's more than the budget for the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education. And, it's been estimated that 20-30 percent of these medical expenses may have had no meaningful impact. Most of the bills are paid for by the Federal Government with few or no questions asked. ("The Cost of Dying," 60 Minutes, 8/8/1)

Read more....

Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Bioethics, and Biotechnology at Harvard Law School accepting applications for 2011-13 Academic Fellowship Program starting 9/1

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Bioethics, and Biotechnology at Harvard Law School will be accepting applications for the 2011-13 Academic Fellowship Program on a rolling basis from September 1, 2010 through November 12, 2010.

The fellowship is designed for applicants who have the intellectual focus to make top-rate academics in health law policy, bioethics or biotechnology, and who would benefit from time to develop their ideas and writing before they enter the academic job market. Our prior fellows have found homes on the law faculties at Harvard, Berkeley, BU, UCLA, and the University of Arizona. The fellowships include stipends of $60,000/yr for two years, a small research budget and access to the full range of the Center’s and Harvard’s facilities and research resources. If you know of any candidate who might be interested, please direct them to the call for applications available here to learn more:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/petrie-flom/fellowship/pdf/CFA2011.pdf

Center for Medicare Advocacy to Host webinar on health care reform, Medicare, and people in the community

Wondering how health care reform is going to affect Medicare for people living in the community?  Get all your answers at our upcoming webinar Health Care Reform and Medicare for People in the Community. The webinar will be presented by Center for Medicare Advocacy Senior Policy Attorney Vicki Gottlich.

You can register at https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/777/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=61856

This session will focus on changes to Medicare that affect all Medicare beneficiaries, including:

• Changes to premium and cost-sharing structures
• Changes to Medicare Advantage plans, including reforms to improve benefit structures
• Changes to the Part D program, including closing the Donut Hole
• Improvements to preventive benefits
• Improvements to care for people with chronic conditions

The Seminar is September 2, 2010 at 3:00 pm EST, and will last one hour.  Cost is $80.00 per site - so invite your friends!

No other organization will match our depth of information, insider knowledge, and practical tips.

Benefits Checkup Updated

The National Council on Aging’s National Center for Benefits Outreach & Enrollment (NCBOE) has developed a new data mapping tool that allows users to search for information about eligibility and enrollment trends in Medicare and Medicaid benefits programs. The map also provides statistics on the number of individuals eligible for or enrolled in programs such as Medicare Part D Extra Help.

For guidance on how to navigate the map, please go to to http://ssl4.benefitscheckup.org/datamap/

NCBOE also has published a new issue brief called Extra Help to Keep Extra Help: Assisting LIS Beneficiaries Who Lose Their Deemed Status. It offers promising strategies using list-driven communications to help beneficiaries adversely affected by the redeeming process regain and retain the Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy.

September is National Preparedness Month--how can you help older persons prepare for disasters?

September Is National Preparedness Month

This September marks the seventh annual National Preparedness Month (NPM). Led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and The Advertising Council, NPM is a nationwide effort encouraging individuals, families, businesses and communities to work together and take action to prepare for emergencies.

NPM Coalition members will sponsor events and activities throughout the month highlighting the steps that individuals, families and communities can take to prepare. FEMA recently announced that more than 1,900 national, regional, tribal, state, and local organizations and businesses have pledged their support and joined the 2010 National Preparedness Month Coalition. The registration for the Coalition continues through September.

To register for membership in the coalition or to learn more about the Ready Campaign, including how to make an emergency plan and items to be included in an emergency supply kit, please go to http://www.ready.gov/america/npm10/index.html

To download the Ready Campaign widget, please go to http://www.fema.gov/help/widgets/index.shtm#5

AoA announces Rosalinde Gilbert Innovations in Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver Legacy Award

Initiated in 2007, The Rosalinde Gilbert Innovations in Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver Legacy Award is intended to promote promising practices and stimulate innovation in the field of Alzheimer's caregiving by recognizing and rewarding those efforts which lead the way in addressing the needs of Alzheimer's caregivers. Three awards of $20,000 each will be awarded to nonprofit organizations, government agencies or universities responding to a community need with a program or project which focuses primarily on family/informal caregivers of adults with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. One award will be granted in each of three categories: (1) Creative Expression, (2) Policy and Advocacy and (3) Diverse/Multicultural Communities.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Pacific Time August 12, 2010.

To learn more about this award and to download an application, please go to

http://caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=2188