Ladies and gentlemen, I stand here before you at a time in which the health
care of older Americans has become a critical issue. Or should I say
issues' We have more people needing more and more specialized care - this
is critical. We have fewer and fewer people being asked to do more and more
- that is critical. Current healthcare policy, especially for the aging,
seems inadequate to address the challenges of what lies ahead. The
situation seems very bleak at times. All signs seem to show that it will
get bleaker. Well, I am here to tell you that I am the weatherman. I have
weathered this storm with you. And I can tell you that the forecast looks
good, if we can just keep our eyes on what is important and understand what
tools we have to get through this, and overcome the challenges that the
I like to think of myself, when I think of myself, as the captain of
my own ship. And the ship that I am piloting through these new and
changing times of healthcare is definitely weathering some storms. As we
all know, the health status of our aging population is going to cause us to
rethink many of our set beliefs about providing health care to older
adults. I don't just mean in the ways of policy, but also regarding our
cultural values. We know that simply caring for disease and disease states
of our older patients are no longer enough. We are caring for the patient,
we are caring for the caregivers, and we are caring for the families and
the extended families. Hopefully we are also caring for ourselves. And we
know that in this fight, we are still on the uphill slope. To paraphrase
Paul Revere, "The elderly are coming! The elderly are coming!"
By the year 2030, over seventy million United States citizens will be over
age 65. By the same year, 8.5 million will be over 85. These are our
patients, the ones who are the most likely to need poly pharmacy, to have
disab...