It was recently revealed that more than 6,000 elder Floridians – most of them poor and disabled – died while on a waiting list for desperately needed services.
According to statistics from the Florida Department of Elderly Affairs requested by POLITICO Florida (the Florida branch of a national journalism organization), 6,538 seniors died while waiting for services from four programs: Medicaid managed long-term care, the Home Care for the Elderly, Community Care for the Elderly and the Alzheimer’s Disease Initiative. They were part of a group of 58,818 people on waiting lists for home and community based services as of December 2015, based on data maintained by AARP Florida.
And here’s the really bad news. It’s going to get worse. The Legislature has directed funding to programs that will add 812 openings to the Home Community Care for the Elderly program. That’s 812 new openings with a waiting list of more than 58,000.
As baby boomers age, the situation in Florida, which has a disproportionate number of older residents compared to most other states, will become catastrophic. It is long past time for state government to recognize that too little is being done, and this will become an impossible burden on Florida.