The goal of the “Policy Design Workshop”, held June 2008, was to emerge with specifications for new policies that address the coming age wage and need for aging-related services. Participants first identified the “real” and “ideal” states of aging services in Minnesota, then used these identify issues in 3 key areas: 1) senior-friendly communities, 2) financing, and 3) home-based care. After listing the key issues, participants worked in small groups to create a new “policy design” to address one of the issues. Included in the policy design were specifics about how the product or service would work, who it would target, how it would be paid for, and identified next steps for implementation. The ideas generated by the group include:
- Americare, a system that would combine financing for care into a single, person-centered product.
- Communities for a Lifetime that would certify communities that provided services and resources for residents throughout life stages.
- Company Wonderful, a social service organization using models from innovative companies to recruit, retain and support employees, including seniors of retirement age.
- Every Minnesotan a Millionaire, a program that would aim to make every Minnesotan a millionaire – able to pay for his or her own aging needs and empowered with an array of personal choice in services because of that financial freedom – to enable each resident to live a long, satisfying life.
- Keep Truckin’, a program that creates an incentive to work for people aged 62-67 while still drawing on Social Security.
- You Give, You Get, a volunteer point bank that would create a barter market for services while increasing rates of volunteerism and fostering ties within communities, combined with a a K-12 compulsorily and optional adult “share, save, spend” savings plan that would help pay for skilled services needed as one grows old.
» Click here for a pdf of the full descriptions of these policy design ideas.
» Click here for a pdf of the full summary of the workshop.
Next Steps
The hope of the workshop is that it would act as a “Phase I,” generating enough interest in a “Phase II” in which some of the ideas from the workshop could be pursued further. This had begun to happen in a number of ways. First, the Citizens League has been asked to present the findings from the workshop at a number of community events. Second, there are tentative plans to explore the “Communities for a Lifetime” idea at the regional policy workshop being convened by the Citizens League in September. Finally, the Citizens League is in discussions with a few different organizations about the Citizens League might work with others to build off the work of the workshop.
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