Yvonne Abraham, writing in the Boston Globe, calls for sweeping changes in the way the healthcare system treats aging people and the caregivers who support them. She tells the story of Virginia O’Connor, a woman whose mother with Alzheimer’s didn’t qualify for the services she needed because she didn’t want to living in a nursing home, assisted living center or hospital.

Ultimately, O’Connor found help for her mother — for fees of up to $650 per month that she had to pay out of her own pocket.

Many others can’t afford these services. Amazingly, they are not covered by insurance.

Which is ludicrous when you consider how much more expensive it is to provide an elderly person with a hospital bed — on average about $20,000 per stay — than it is to provide this kind of support, which can help avoid the hospital.

But the whole crazy system is weighted toward the expensive business of managing crises, and not prevention - even though the latter ultimately costs less.

Host Ira Glass enters Michael Phillips’ life, provides catalyst for transformation

Eric Deggans, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, documents the unlikely partnership between This American Life’s Ira Glass and Michael Phillips, a 27-year-old with a genetic muscle disease that has left him with the ability to move only his face and his thumb. Their collaboration became the story that kicked off TAL’s second television season last weekend.

Glass had heard about Phillips through one of his producers, and was

… drawn in first by his matter-of-fact recounting of how often he nearly dies when there is a problem with his respirator.

“The way he wrote about what those moments were like was utterly without melodrama,” said the host, who was intent on avoiding a typical, corny story about overcoming a disability. “It was just a very easy reporting of, ‘Here’s everything that goes through my head when I realize I may die in a minute.’ It was kind of amazing.”

After the exchange of many email messages, Phillips realized he wanted more independence from his mother, who still sleeps each night at his bedside so that she can respond if his breathing tube pops out.

Another goal was to spend more private time with his girlfriend Sara Rosenbaum (above, with Phillips), a St. Petersburg Times reporter whom he met through an online ad.

“There was no space in his life for me,” [Rosenbaum] said. “As he started writing Ira, he began to change; he realized what he wanted in his life . . . (and) after Ira left, I began to realize how much I cared for Mike after all.”

An excerpt of the show can be seen on the Showtime site here. Actor Johnny Depp provides the voice for Phillips’ emails.

From the Dallas News:

Clay Boatright, who serves on the board of the Arc of Dallas and the Arc of Texas, says he fears that federal budget tightening will reduce services for people with disabilities and prevent them from reaching their fullest potential.

Among the problems he sees:

– A plan to prohibit school systems from billing Medicaid for administrative services;

– A plan for major reductions or elimination of services in vocational rehabilitation and training; and

– A plan to drastically reduce funding for caseworkers who help people move out of state institutions into the community.

Boatright backs the ADA Restoration Act, along with a bill that requires medical schools to teach doctors about disability, and another that will help the states increase wages for direct support workers.

Just as people’s value should not be based on their sex or the color of their skin, nor should it be based on a disability.