Senior population comprises 12 percent of the state’s total population. There are nearly 95,000 seniors age 85 and above– the age group that will require long term care services. It is estimated that the senior population will by 126 percent by 2007 – 2030, which puts Wyoming on 4th spot with the highest senior growth rate.

All types of settings for long term care in Wyoming are expensive. In Cheyenne, the median annual cost for a private nursing home room costs $74.460; in Casper, it costs $70,445. The cost throughout the state is $63,875.

The median annual cost for a private room in assisted living setting typically run from $32,880 to $38,400. Casper’s costs have increased by 15 percent over the past five years, while only 5 percent in Cheyenne. The total statewide costs have swollen to 6 percent a year over the past five years versus the national annual median costs of 5 percent. A private room in an assisted living for the national level is $33,903.

Seniors who opt for home care should also expect to pay around $17 to $28 — the median hourly rate for non-Medicare certified home health aide. Residents of Casper are unlucky as their state has the most expensive rate of $28, while cost in Cheyenne and the rest of the state is only $18 per hour. The national hourly rate is $18, which is 2 percent increase annually over the past five years.

The adult day care has daily median rate of $52 in Casper; however, the rates in Cheyenne are unavailable. The rest of the state in Wyoming has median cost of $39, much lower than the national rate of $54.

There are almost 82,000 Wyoming residents relying on Medicaid, seven percent of which are seniors age 65 and above. However, the state Medicaid allocates only 14% budget for long term care for seniors under home and community-based settings. Long term care services are very crucial for elders because it will help them perform activities that a frail adult is incapable of doing. However, the insufficient funding from Medicaid adds burden to people, as they will be forced on the spend-down requirements of Medicaid for long term care eligibility. Medicaid does not exempt the person from paying the services because it won’t cover all the expenses, and it has strict rules in qualifying recipients.

Recently, the state of Wyoming implemented the long term care partnership program that aims of encouraging residents to purchase LTC policies. The program serves as reform in improving Medicaid’s support for long term care and bolstering the health care for the elderly. This program is strictly implemented in all participating private insurance policies. Just like other partnership policies in some states, the Wyoming partnership policies provide benefits namely asset disregard, inflation protection, tax qualified and reciprocity agreement. The asset disregard is the most-sought benefit feature of partnership policies. This allows people to apply for Medicaid coverage without depleting theirs assets to meet the asset li

According to Politico, “Hillary has five staffers on the ground in Wyoming, where caucuses take place Saturday and where 18 delegates are at stake. Bill Clinton will make three stops there, and local supporters are trying to arrange a visit from the candidate herself Friday. The Democratic dilemma moves on to Wymoing!

“I think we can win,” said Kathy Karpan, a former Democratic candidate for Wyoming governor who is one of Clinton’s leading supporters in the state, citing “the connection that the Clintons have with people in our state,” a network of support built during their White House years, when they vacationed at Jackson Hole. So, will Hillary be able to bring down the Obama caucus mystique? She won the popular vote in Texas last Tuesday but lost in total delegates due to Obama’s caucus expertise.

Prior to Super Tuesday II, no one was thinking, or caring, about Wyoming. Interesting. Mentally, most people pencilled Wyoming in as an Obama state, but of course there’s been no polling there nor was there in the other Wyoming-esque states that Obama won earlier in the cycle. Nobody really knows what such innovations as staff and candidate visits might be able to do for Clinton’s fortunes. But you can bet that Wyoming is a bttle ground now. Maybe Obama needs to pray more! Obama desperately needs to stop the three state bleeding and a Wyoming-Missippi win over the next four days would go a long way to do exactly that!