Staying Fit
There's near unanimous agreement among older Americans that Congress should require nursing homes to publicly disclose their coronavirus cases and require facilities to provide video visits for residents and their families, according to the results of a new AARP poll.
The 50-plus population also wants lawmakers to make sure health care workers get the personal protective equipment they need and pass legislation that would provide help to family caregivers, including income tax credits, the survey results show.
AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.
"It is clear that people very strongly believe that health care workers need personal protective equipment, so we need Congress to really listen to their constituents and to make this a bigger priority,” said Bill Sweeney, AARP's senior vice president for government affairs. The poll found that virtually 100 percent of the older adults responding want Congress to act on the protective equipment and that the support was bipartisan, with 99 percent of Democrats and Republicans and 98 percent of independents voicing such support.
The poll of 2,796 Americans ages 50 and older was conducted for AARP on April 20 and 21 by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization.
"The lack of partisanship on these things strikes to the core of how this is perhaps the singular issue of our times, of a generation, that cuts across the various divides that we typically see when we talk about health care in our country,” said J. Michael Dennis, executive director of AmeriSpeaks, a department of NORC.
AARP state leaders from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are meeting virtually with Capitol Hill offices over the coming week to call on Congress to act on the legislative priorities related to the pandemic that older Americans overwhelmingly support.
Nursing home transparency
Requiring nursing homes, assisted living and other residential care facilities to provide video visits for residents and their families is especially important at this time because the pandemic has forced facilities to suspend the ability of loved ones to visit family members. According to the survey, 70 percent of respondents strongly support and 26 percent somewhat back such a regulation.
