To the Editor:
Re “Covid Funds Shrinking, Paid Household Caregivers Face Massive Cutbacks” (information article, March 5):
The story of Kacey Poynter and her son, Sonny, places a highlight on the precarious state of household caregiving in America. Indiana’s resolution to slash funding for its attendant care program threatens to throw households like Ms. Poynter’s into monetary turmoil and disrupt the crucial care their family members require.
Indiana is simply the most recent state grappling with this difficulty. The larger image reveals a fragmented system struggling beneath the burden of inadequate federal funding. The inflow of federal pandemic funds provided momentary aid, permitting states like Indiana to develop caregiver assist packages.
Nonetheless, household caregivers have been hurting far earlier than the pandemic, with 19 million individuals reporting excessive ranges of emotional stress. Now, as these funds dry up, states and household caregivers are left scrambling.
To make sure that household caregivers can proceed offering important care for his or her family members, Congress should put money into our nation’s care infrastructure. This contains allocating adequate funding for home- and community-based providers, in addition to a nationwide paid household and medical depart program.
Moreover, swift implementation of the Nationwide Technique to Assist Household Caregivers, launched by the Biden administration in 2022, is crucial to acknowledge the irreplaceable function that caregivers play in our society.
By investing in household caregivers in Indiana and in each state, we’re investing in a stronger future for all households.
Jason Resendez
Washington
The author is the president and C.E.O. of the Nationwide Alliance for Caregiving.
To the Editor:
“Staffing Shortages at Nursing Properties Persist” (entrance web page, March 1) reinforces the pressing want for the U.S. to develop a coherent strategy to the long-term care wants of our getting older inhabitants.
The pandemic underscored issues in nursing properties that had lengthy been obvious. It additionally highlighted a longstanding bias towards institutional take care of low-income individuals. Medicaid, the biggest supply of funding for long-term providers, is required to pay for nursing dwelling care, however not for home- and community-based providers.
A Nationwide Academy of Social Insurance coverage report, “Social Insurance coverage Through the Pandemic: Successes, Shortcomings and Coverage Choices for the Future,” examines the devastating influence of Covid-19 on our nation’s nursing dwelling residents and staffs. Residents of colour have been disproportionately harmed; their mortality charges have been considerably larger than these of white residents.
Congress wants to think about reforms to extend nursing dwelling staffing and enhance pay and dealing circumstances. Congress may also contemplate increasing the Medicare-funded graduate medical teaching programs to incorporate nurse coaching. This might assist subsidize the price of such coaching and tackle the nursing scarcity in nursing properties.
As your article notes, many consultants consider that our present strategy to long-term care is “basically damaged.” It’s time for a nationwide resolution.
William J. Arnone
Washington
The author is C.E.O. of the Nationwide Academy of Social Insurance coverage.
Orwell in a Honda
To the Editor:
Re “Watch the Means You’re Driving. Carmakers Are Watching, Too” (entrance web page, March 12):
I used to be driving on Interstate 95 in Connecticut just lately when a automobile coming into the freeway minimize me off. I swerved into the left lane, inflicting my automobile to fishtail earlier than I regained management. My fast motion averted a severe and presumably deadly accident.
That swerve is an instance of the type of noncontextual data that auto insurers are gathering from stealth laptop packages in vehicles like my 2023 Honda Civic. Had I activated “Driver Suggestions,” that incident may have led to larger insurance coverage charges for me — as an alternative of for the motive force who practically triggered an accident.
In 2024, Massive Brother sneaks into the again seat of our vehicles and watches each transfer we make. The view from there, nonetheless, isn’t all the time correct.
Betty J. Cotter
Shannock, R.I.
To the Editor:
After studying this text, I really feel as if I hit an enormous pothole going 50 miles an hour. I’ve questions: What’s the automobile firm’s minimize for offering data to the insurer? If the insurer fees 21 p.c extra, as occurred to a driver quoted within the article, does the automobile producer get 10 p.c of that?
To generate much more income, I counsel that automobile firms pressure us to look at commercials (like while you’re filling up on the gasoline station) on the big screens which can be in each automobile now. Take pleasure in your drive!
Brant Thomas
Chilly Spring, N.Y.
Classes From Covid
To the Editor:
Re “4 Years On, Covid Is Right here to Keep,” by Daniela J. Lamas (Opinion visitor essay, March 11):
In her great article, Dr. Lamas superbly described how she is not mortified by Covid however carried its grave classes ahead. As an infectious illnesses specialist, I’ve had comparable experiences.
Ignorance isn’t bliss. To dispel any magical and doubtlessly pricey pondering, I wish to elaborate on three essential classes.
The primary lesson is that science and cooperation prevailed. Allow us to rejoice and remind ourselves that by mutual respect and a typical objective, we have been in a position to tame a lethal virus.
The second lesson is that simple and sensible infection-control measures equivalent to distancing and quarantining have been efficient and purchased us the time wanted to develop a vaccine.
Lastly, the third lesson is that the vaccine labored.
Prefer it or not, Covid is right here to remain. We’ll all must boldly settle for this truth. We’d like not be fearful, although, as a result of we now perceive it and have hopefully discovered at the least three crucial classes that may stop Covid from resurging and inflicting one other lethal pandemic.
To the Editor:
Re “Can You Create a Numerous School Class With out Affirmative Motion?” (The Upshot, nytimes.com, March 9):
The evaluation in your piece reveals that extremely selective schools would possibly obtain racial range utilizing race-blind approaches in the event that they put in depth weight on socioeconomic components.
Our personal evaluation produced comparable findings. However we additionally present that such a change would require a considerable improve in monetary assist in order that low-income college students may afford to enroll. For all however maybe a dozen or two establishments which have very massive endowments, that’s seemingly greater than they will muster.
Actually, monetary assist already falls $10 billion in need of what low-income college students at selective schools want. The logic is easy: Swapping out 35 p.c of high-income college students for lower-income college students, as in one in every of your simulations, can be very costly. The newly chosen college students would wish tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in monetary assist per 12 months.
Growing the enrollment of lower-income and Black, Latino and Native American college students at selective schools is a vital objective that establishments ought to prioritize. However the associated fee can be substantial. Inadequate monetary assist is an issue throughout larger training, one which makes utilizing income-based admissions preferences like these described within the Upshot evaluation an uphill climb.
Phillip Levine
Sarah Reber
Dr. Levine is a professor of economics at Wellesley School and a nonresident senior fellow on the Brookings Establishment. Dr. Reber is a senior fellow in financial research at Brookings.
