Long-term care begins at home and in the community and is about more than nursing home care. Long-term care services and supports include everything from round the clock nursing care or end-of-life care, to hands-on personal assistance with activities of daily living, to daily or intermittent assistance with routine household tasks such as meal preparation, transportation or medication management.

Few Mainers have long-term care insurance and these supports are rarely paid for through other private insurance or Medicare and yet are critical to helping vulnerable individuals and their family members manage at home and live as independently as possible in the community.

This is one in a series of policy briefs written for the 2009 Policy Leaders Academy Health Care Forum.