What They’re Saying

• A woman who has received home healthcare for six years is worried she will lose the service, she wrote in a letter to the editor published in Newsday. Maria Swiatek Hempstead, who is wheelchair-bound, believes that New York Gov. George Pataki’s cuts to home healthcare will only force her into a nursing home. "I’ve been in four of them for brief stays and nothing could be worse," she wrote. Hempstead receives home healthcare services seven days a week, but believes it is still cheaper for the government to keep her at home.

• A recent column in Broker World stated that experts almost always promote selling a long term care contract with a 100% home care option when there is such a choice. "It has become an insurance industry mantra that the home care benefit can actually keep one out of a long term care facility," the column stated. "The problem with this logic is it is often wrong if applied as a general rule. At best, home care is an adjunct to an already existing family caregiving network." The column further stated that the 100% home care option is a plan choice that best meets the needs of working age adults who become disabled, not older, retired individuals or couples.