Laura Katz Olson – författare

In 1965, the United States government enacted legislation to provide low-income individuals with quality health care and related services. Initially viewed as the friendless stepchild of Medicare, Medicaid has grown exponentially since its inception, becoming a formidable force of its own. Funded jointly by the national government and each of the fifty states, the program is now the fourth most expensive item in the federal budget and the second largest category of spending for almost every state. Now, under the new, historic health care reform legislation, Medicaid is scheduled to include sixteen million more people. Laura Katz Olson, an expert on health, aging, and long-term care policy, unravels the multifaceted and perplexing puzzle of Medicaid with respect to those who invest in and benefit from the program. Assessing the social, political, and economic dynamics that have shaped Medicaid for almost half a century, she helps readers of all backgrounds understand the entrenched and powerful interests woven into the system that have been instrumental in swelling costs and holding elected officials hostage.Addressing such fundamental questions as whether patients receive good care and whether Medicaid meets the needs of the low-income population it is supposed to serve, Olson evaluates the extent to which the program is an appropriate foundation for health care reform.

An ever-more diverse America is getting older, but American policies are not growing with the needs of our ethnic and aging society. Age Through Ethnic Lenses explores the distinct characteristics and unique social, political, economic, and cultural situations of America's aged, while highlighting the common needs and objectives among all aging Americans. With portraits of Asians, Latinos, individuals of European and African origins, Native Americans, Socio-religious groups, women, gay men and women, and the rural aged, this book broadens our perspective on the issues of long-term care, and provides a valuable guide for future public policy as we enter the twenty-first century.

An ever-more diverse America is getting older, but American policies are not growing with the needs of our ethnic and aging society. Age Through Ethnic Lenses explores the distinct characteristics and unique social, political, economic, and cultural situations of America's aged, while highlighting the common needs and objectives among all aging Americans. With portraits of Asians, Latinos, individuals of European and African origins, Native Americans, Socio-religious groups, women, gay men and women, and the rural aged, this book broadens our perspective on the issues of long-term care, and provides a valuable guide for future public policy as we enter the twenty-first century.

Revealing the dark truth about the impact of predatory private equity firms on American health care.Won Gold from the Axiom Book Award in the Category of Business Ethics, the Benjamin Franklin Awards by the Independent Book Publishers Association and the North American Book Award in the Catergory of Business Finance, Finalist of the American Book Fest Best Book Social Change and Current Events by the American Book FestPrivate equity (PE) firms pervade all aspects of our modern lives. Unlike other corporations, which generally manufacture products or provide services, they leverage considerable debt and other people's money to buy and sell businesses with the sole aim of earning supersized profits in the shortest time possible. With a voracious appetite and trillions of dollars at its disposal, the private equity industry is now buying everything from your opioid treatment center to that helicopter that helps swoop you up from a car crash site. It may even control how and when you can get your kidney dialysis. In Ethically Challenged, Laura Katz Olson describes how PE firms are gobbling up physician and dental practices; home care and hospice agencies; substance abuse, eating disorder, and autism services; urgent care facilities; and emergency medical transportation. With a sharp eye on cost and quality of care, Olson investigates the PE industry's impact on these essential services. She explains how PE firms pile up massive debt on their investment targets and how they bleed these enterprises with assorted fees and dividends for themselves. Throughout, she argues that public pension funds, which provide the preponderance of equity for PE buyouts, tend to ignore the pesky fact that their money may be undermining the very health care system their workers and retirees rely on.Weaving together insights from interviews with business owners and experts, newspaper articles, purchased data sets, and industry publications, Olson offers a unique perspective and appreciation of the significance of PE investments in health care. The first book to comprehensively address private equity and health care, Ethically Challenged raises the curtain on an industry notorious for its secrecy, exposing the nefarious side of its maneuvers.

How financial profiteering has reshaped long-term care and jeopardized the well-being of nursing home residents.Nursing homes care for some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. They are also increasingly controlled by financial actors whose priorities lie far from the bedside. In Financialization of the US Nursing Home Industry, Laura Katz Olson and Michael K. Gusmano examine how for-profit companies—and increasingly private equity firms and real estate investment trusts (REITs) with complex ownership structures—have transformed long-term care into a vehicle for profit extraction.Drawing on extensive case studies of major chains and mid-sized operators, the authors trace the industry's consolidation over decades and document how financial engineering—asset stripping, related-party transactions, real estate manipulation, and deliberate labor cost cutting—has reshaped nursing home operations. Chronic understaffing, declining care quality, opaque ownership arrangements, and repeated bankruptcies plague a system designed to maximize returns. The book places these developments in historical and policy context, showing how federal and state government policies enabled substandard conditions even as public funds—primarily Medicare and Medicaid—now supply roughly three-quarters of industry revenue. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed long-standing systemic obstacles to decent care, revealing how financial priorities can have deadly consequences for residents and frontline caregivers alike.This essential book offers scholars, policymakers, students, and advocates a comprehensive account of how the nursing home industry works—or doesn't work—and why meaningful reform will require structural change. Care for powerless older people, the authors argue, must be treated as a public responsibility rather than a private investment strategy.

Combining expert knowledge and first-hand experience, a noted elder care researcher confronts the long-distance care of her own mother.Winner of a Gold Medal, 2017 Living Now Book Award in the Caregiving category Shortlisted for the 2016 Sarton Women's Book Awards in the Memoir category presented by the Story Circle Network For millions of Americans caregiving is the "new normal." For Laura Katz Olson, a respected researcher of long-term care for the aging, Elder Care Journey chronicles the disruption of her world and how it is upended by the ever-increasing long-distance needs of her own mother.A healthy, Senior Olympics medal winner, Olson's mother is slowly and steadily incapacitated by Parkinson's disease and a gradual loss of vision. Thrust into a long-distance caregiving role, Olson finds her previous academic notions about assisting a frail parent increasingly at odds with the reality of the lived experience. In a narrative full of "ah-ha!" moments, tears, sighs, and outrage that will be familiar to many, Olson opens a window into the nursing home and home care industries that consume much in the way of taxpayer dollars, but often fail to deliver quality care. Olson's personal story vividly demonstrates not only the overwhelming bureaucratic barriers faced by care-dependent seniors but also their beleaguered adult children's attempts to ensure their parents' health, safety, and well-being.