ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
5TH DISTRICT CANDIDATES offer solutions to a Bedford family struggling to pay for a nursing home for their father.
Gary Overstreet, 68, goes each morning to Oak Manor Nursing Home, where his 93-year-old father is bedridden, to pick up his dad's laundry for washing.
Another son, Virgil Overstreet, 73, visits each night to feed their father.
They have cared for him for 15 years.
Clarence Overstreet's nursing home bill is $100 a day, plus expenses for medicine and things like razor blades and shaving cream. The sons say the family is lucky.
Their father farmed and didn't have much income, but their mother, Maggie Elizabeth Overstreet, worked at the woolen mill in Bedford. When Clarence Overstreet retired, he chose to draw half of her Social Security instead of his own.
"My dad's first Social Security check was more than he ever paid into it in all his life," said Gary Overstreet.
The family had the foresight to invest those Social Security payments in certificates of deposit and now uses that money to pay for their father's care.
But what about people who just can't make those kinds of payments? Overstreet asks.
If their dad lives another two years, the brothers will have to sell his 13-acre farm in Bedford to pay for his care. Virgil Overstreet lives at the Bedford farm.
"If you save today for your children, it's probably going to be taken up on medical bills" for yourself, Gary Overstreet said. "Because [my dad] owns some property and saved some money, he's got to spend it."
If Clarence Overstreet needed skilled nursing care, Medicare would pay for it. But he doesn't need it, and no program will pay for his medications.
New health care legislation passed in August gives the self-employed and companies with fewer than 50 workers the ability to buy Medical Savings Accounts. Participants can set aside money tax-free to pay for current or future medical expenses.
Under the law, which takes effect in July, workers may get low-cost monthly insurance by buying a high-deductible policy. The highest deductible would be about $4,500 per family. To help meet the deductible, workers could pay into a tax-free account similar to an IRA. People will have to decide each time they become ill whether to dip into their account to meet the deductible or skip the visit and let the account build up.
The government will limit the number of people participating in such accounts to 775,000, awarded on a first-come basis, as part of a four-year experiment to determine whether the accounts help hold down costs.
Overstreet doesn't think Medical Savings Accounts are the answer for most people because they appeal mainly to those who have enough money to afford the accounts.
Here's what the congressional candidates from the 5th District say about health care costs and Overstreet's concerns.
* Democrat Virgil Goode views Medicare and Social Security as "American success stories." Before Medicare, 50 percent of the elderly didn't have health care, he said. He favors a system that provides incentives for "working men and women" to purchase long-term health care insurance.
Medicare and Social Security have to be preserved and kept solvent, he said.
* Republican George Landrith would like to see flexibility built into the American health care system so that people can more easily be cared for at home. Also, senior citizens need security about these programs. Politicians need to stop using them as a "political football" every two years, he said.
To help people like the Overstreets, Landrith proposes "American Dream Accounts" that would allow families to put aside tax-free money for health care, education or a first home. He also thinks seniors need more coverage options through long-term care insurance and prescription drug coverage.
* Virginia Independent Party candidate Tex Wood says health care is taking a "back seat to our supporting a global economy, tax breaks for an extremely wealthy elite and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He also wants the salaries of health care company executives who don't treat "even a hangnail" to be broadly published so the public can see the profits in health care.
His main solution for change, though, is for both the Democrat and Republican parties to put new people in office.
Overstreet has the same reaction to Landrith's "American Dream Accounts" proposal as he does to Medical Savings Accounts. They're a good idea for people with money to put in them. Low-cost, long-term insurance is "one of the best things" ever, but for young people, he said. "It's too late for people already in their 50s, 60s and up," Overstreet said.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff Gary Overstreet visits his fatherby CNBClarence, 93, in the Bedford hospital nursing home facility.
Clarence is bedridden and blind. color. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESS