National Senior Citizens Law Center

A dispute with the Wilson administration over paperwork has forced Los Angeles County officials to delay benefit checks for hundreds of poor, elderly immigrants in early December. The catalyst for the disagreement is a new $14-million program, known as Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI), created by the Legislature to provide benefits to poor, mostly elderly noncitizens who lost their eligibility for federal aid when Congress adopted a welfare reform act in 1996.

Even families that have planned for the needs of an older relative and set aside some money may be surprised to learn just how little their savings can actually buy. The average cost of staying in a private nursing home is $30,000 to $40,000 a year, according to the National Council of Senior Citizens, while caring for someone at home--an Alzheimer's patient, for example--takes about $12,000 a year.

While most of the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has focused on its requirement that most Americans have health insurance, the Supreme Court takes up another explosive issue Wednesday afternoon as the justices consider whether states can challenge the law's dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Twenty-six Republican-led states are arguing that federal pressure in the law to expand Medicaid to all low-income Americans violates states' rights. And some legal experts believe that this expansion - which is expected to provide subsidized healthcare for as many as 17 million more low-income people over the next decade - could be a ripe target for conservatives on the court.

Lawsuits from 14 states challenging the constitutionality of the new national healthcare law face an uphill battle, largely due to a far-reaching Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that upheld federal restrictions on home-grown marijuana in California. At issue in that case -- just like in the upcoming challenges to the healthcare overhaul -- was the reach of the federal government's power. Conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy joined a 6-3 ruling that said Congress could regulate marijuana that was neither bought nor sold on the market but rather grown at home legally for sick patients.

A bitter dispute between California and federal health officials over nursing home reforms has set off a wave of confusion across the country. Irate consumer groups are charging that last week's agreement resolving the feud in California will gut enforcement of the reforms in California as well as disrupt significant progress that has been made in improving patient care in other states.

I have a confession to make. I was defeated by the new Medicare drug program. The weapon used against me was Medicare's "plan finder," a website that churns out a list of private Medicare drug plans, along with their estimated annual costs, based on the prescriptions the user types in. The website then prompts the user to enroll in the plan that best suits his or her medical and financial profile.

During an 18-year tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice David H. Souter migrated from conservative to moderate to liberal, leaving opinions across the political spectrum on divisive issues like abortion, property rights and the separation of church and state. -- Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (1992) In a bitter 5-4 vote upholding Roe vs.

With workplace age-discrimination claims rising rapidly, the Supreme Court made it much harder Thursday for older workers to win in court. The 5-4 decision reversed a long-standing rule. Many federal appellate courts had decided that if a worker could show age was one of the factors in a layoff or demotion, then the employer was required to prove it had a legitimate reason for its action apart from age.

If they want to continue paying a minimal monthly premium or no premium at all, more than 600,000 low-income Medicare recipients in California will have to choose a new prescription drug plan before the end of the year or be automatically reassigned to a plan that may not include the services they need.