A new Master Plan for Aging for California is underway after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order in June.
It directs the state’s Health and Human Services Agency to convene a cabinet-level Workgroup for Aging, and to create a subcommittee focused on long-term care.
The Long-Term Care Subcommittee is tasked with issuing a report to the Governor by March 2020 on stabilizing state long-term care programs and infrastructure, including In-Home Supportive Services, with the full Master Plan completed by October 2020, the order states.
The subcommittee members also will be responsible for examining access to long-term care and its financing, as well as staffing.
Long-term care advocates heralded the plan.
“In the next year it’s time for providers to be a part of the dialogue to be able to think beyond themselves,” said Bruce Chernof, M.D., SCAN Foundation. “One of the problems for me in the aging space is that for a long time it’s been underrecognized and in some areas underfunded. It’s been very siloed.”
