Michael Hargrave, Vice President, NIC MAP

President Barack Obama in a press conference Tuesday night argued that the only way to balance the budget is to address the nation’s rising healthcare costs. Medicare and Medicaid, the big government payers of long-term care, and the housing market will be the subjects of McKnight’s Online Expo on its final day today.

In the second major press conference of his presidency, Obama said that he hopes to rein in government healthcare spending and save as much as $295 billion over the next decade through program cuts and policy shifts. At 1 p.m. EST, Joy Morrow, senior clinical consultant with Hansen, Hunter & Company, and Peter Gruhn, director of research for the American Health Care Association, will lead a webcast on Medicare and Medicaid, which cost a lot to maintain.

Earlier in the day, at 11 a.m. EST, Michael Hargrave, vice president of NIC Market Area Profiles for the National Investment Center for the Seniors Housing & Care Industry, will discuss the impact of the economic downturn on the eldercare market.

It’s not too late to sign up for the Expo. Go to www.mcknights.com/expo to register for free. Content from the event will be available online for two months. Besides the webcasts, there will be 17 vendor booths to visit in the Resource Center at the show.