Political Economy of Aging: The State, Private Power, and Social Welfare

Politics & Social Sciences

Olson, Laura Katz

Social Sciences

Columbia Univ. Pr.

The Politics of Medicaid

In 1965, the United States government enacted legislation to provide low-income individuals with quality health care and related services. Initially viewed as the friendless stepchild of Medicare, Medicaid has grown exponentially since its inception, becoming a formidable force of its own. Funded jointly by the national government and each of the fifty states, the program is now the fourth most expensive item in the federal budget and the second largest category of spending for almost every state. Now, under the new, historic health care reform legislation, Medicaid is scheduled to include sixteen million more people. Laura Katz Olson, an expert on health, aging, and long-term care policy, unravels the multifaceted and perplexing puzzle of Medicaid with respect to those who invest in and benefit from the program. Assessing the social, political, and economic dynamics that have shaped Medicaid for almost half a century, she helps readers of all backgrounds understand the entrenched and powerful interests woven into the system that have been instrumental in swelling costs and holding elected officials hostage. Addressing such fundamental questions as whether patients receive good care and whether Medicaid meets the needs of the low-income population it is supposed to serve, Olson evaluates the extent to which the program is an appropriate foundation for health care reform.

History

Americas

Columbia University Press

Format Hardcover Subject Literary Collections Publisher Greenwood Press

Aging and Public Policy: The Politics of Growing Old in America (Contributions in Political Science)

Browne, William P.

Politics & Government

Praeger

Since the 1990s, the politics and policies of aging and elder care have emerged as one of the more important issues both nationally and worldwide. Because of population aging and the lengthening of the life span itself, the prevalence of chronic disabling diseases is increasing considerably, rendering more people dependent on others to meet their daily needs. The Not So Golden Years: Caregiving, the Frail Elderly and the Long-Term Care Establishment explores the forces shaping long-term care policy in the U.S. and its impact on individuals and public budgets. The book addresses the world of elder care from the vantage points of gender, race, ethnicity, and social class. It systematically describes the experiences of family caregivers, the workers who comprise the caring labor force, and the frail elderly themselves, showing how each of these vulnerable players, mostly women, are affected by long-term care policies and practices.

The Not-So-Golden Years: Caregiving, the Frail Elderly, and the Long-Term Care Establishment

Parenting & Relationships

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

About the Author\nLaura Katz Olson (BETHLEHEM, PA) is a distinguished professor of political science at Lehigh University. She is the author of Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines and The Politics of Medicaid.\nRevealing the dark truth about the impact of predatory private equity firms on American health care. 
Private equity (PE) firms pervade all aspects of our modern lives. Unlike other corporations, which generally manufacture products or provide services, they leverage considerable debt and other people's money to buy and sell businesses with the sole aim of earning supersized profits in the shortest time possible. With a voracious appetite and trillions of dollars at its disposal, the private equity industry is now buying everything from your opioid treatment center to that helicopter that helps swoop you up from a car crash site. It may even control how and when you can get your kidney dialysis. 
In Ethically Challenged, Laura Katz Olson describes how PE firms are gobbling up physician and dental practices; home care and hospice agencies; substance abuse, eating disorder, and autism services; urgent care facilities; and emergency medical transportation. With a sharp eye on cost and quality of care, Olson investigates the PE industry's impact on these essential services. She explains how PE firms pile up massive debt on their investment targets and how they bleed these enterprises with assorted fees and dividends for themselves. Throughout, she argues that public pension funds, which provide the preponderance of equity for PE buyouts, tend to ignore the pesky fact that their money may be undermining the very health care system their workers and retirees rely on. 
Weaving together insights from interviews with business owners and experts, newspaper articles, purchased data sets, and industry publications, Olson offers a unique perspective and appreciation of the significance of PE investments in health care. The first book to comprehensively address private equity and health care, Ethically Challenged raises the curtain on an industry notorious for its secrecy, exposing the nefarious side of its maneuvers.\nBook Description\nRevealing the dark truth about the impact of predatory private equity firms on American health care.

Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms US Health Care

Medical Books

Administration & Medicine Economics

Johns Hopkins University Press

Combining expert knowledge and first-hand experience, a noted elder care researcher confronts the long-distance care of her own mother. Winner of a Gold Medal, 2017 Living Now Book Award in the Caregiving category Shortlisted for the 2016 Sarton Women’s Book Awards in the Memoir category presented by the Story Circle Network For millions of Americans caregiving is the “new normal.” For Laura Katz Olson, a respected researcher of long-term care for the aging, Elder Care Journey chronicles the disruption of her world and how it is upended by the ever-increasing long-distance needs of her own mother. A healthy, Senior Olympics medal winner, Olson’s mother is slowly and steadily incapacitated by Parkinson’s disease and a gradual loss of vision. Thrust into a long-distance caregiving role, Olson finds her previous academic notions about assisting a frail parent increasingly at odds with the reality of the lived experience. In a narrative full of “ah-ha!” moments, tears, sighs, and outrage that will be familiar to many, Olson opens a window into the nursing home and home care industries that consume much in the way of taxpayer dollars, but often fail to deliver quality care. Olson’s personal story vividly demonstrates not only the overwhelming bureaucratic barriers faced by care-dependent seniors but also their beleaguered adult children’s attempts to ensure their parents’ health, safety, and well-being.

Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines (S U N Y Series in New Political Science)

Excelsior Editions

Combining expert knowledge and first-hand experience, a noted elder care researcher confronts the long-distance care of her own mother. For millions of Americans caregiving is the “new normal.” For Laura Katz Olson, a respected researcher of long-term care for the aging, Elder Care Journey chronicles the disruption of her world and how it is upended by the ever-increasing long-distance needs of her own mother. A healthy, Senior Olympics medal winner, Olson’s mother is slowly and steadily incapacitated by Parkinson’s disease and a gradual loss of vision. Thrust into a long-distance caregiving role, Olson finds her previous academic notions about assisting a frail parent increasingly at odds with the reality of the lived experience. In a narrative full of “ah-ha!” moments, tears, sighs, and outrage that will be familiar to many, Olson opens a window into the nursing home and home care industries that consume much in the way of taxpayer dollars, but often fail to deliver quality care. Olson’s personal story vividly demonstrates not only the overwhelming bureaucratic barriers faced by care-dependent seniors but also their beleaguered adult children’s attempts to ensure their parents’ health, safety, and well-being. “After losing two siblings, Laura Katz Olson is left singularly responsible for her physically active and lively mother, Dorothy, a thousand miles away, both young at heart and eagerly bicycling everywhere, but increasingly limited by the normal process of aging. Being an expert on aging and health care, Olson is at first confident as she tries to let her mother ‘age in place.’ More than anyone, she believes, she should know what to do. Shuttling between Florida and Pennsylvania, Olson settles into a crushing routine, and with each visit she finds incremental downward change in her mother’s health. Pulled by daughterly guilt at times, but also a wellspring of love, Olson is frank about the resentment she sometimes experiences. “With a unique perspective that links the systemic flaws in our policy approach to elder care to real-world experience, Olson exposes the challenges we all face or are likely to face. More than a personal story, but nevertheless an extremely compelling one, the book should be read by those confounded and frustrated, and by those without direct knowledge of what quietly repeats itself millions of times a day.” — Miriam Laugesen, Department of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University

Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines (New Political Science)

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

State University of New York Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Olson, Laura Katz. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Olson, Laura Katz

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Olson, Laura Katz. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Political Economy of Aging: The State, Private Power, and Social Welfare

The Politics of Medicaid

The Politics of Medicaid

Aging and Public Policy: The Politics of Growing Old in America (Contributions in Political Science)

The Not-So-Golden Years: Caregiving, the Frail Elderly, and the Long-Term Care Establishment

The Not-So-Golden Years: Caregiving, the Frail Elderly, and the Long-Term Care Establishment

Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms US Health Care

Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines (S U N Y Series in New Political Science)

Elder Care Journey: A View from the Front Lines (New Political Science)