The date was January 6th 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the so-called “Four Freedoms speech” in which he urged Congress to change its hands-off approach to global matters by helping America’s allies in WWII. He saw U.S. involvement as necessary for protecting national security and world democracies.

Within a year of the speech, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declared war.

At Village Company 360, we don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that care is as critical an issue in America today as WWII was in ’41. We can choose to act or be pushed.

Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear—were a call to action to secure the future. In that spirit, we offer Four Care Facts:

1. We’ll all need or give care eventually.
2. Long-term care is especially broken.
3. Broken care puts our prosperity & security at risk.
4. Connection is the key to prosperity & quality care.

1. WE’LL ALL NEED OR GIVE CARE EVENTUALLY.

To paraphrase Rosalynn Carter, there are four kinds of people in the world:
Current, past and future caregivers, and those who will need them.

Caregiving affects us ALL, and care demands are only growing. In the U.S., loneliness, chronic disease and other illnesses are on the rise at a time when our nation is trending older. By 2030, all baby boomers—now estimated at about 73 million people—will be 65 or older.¹

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, …

People 85 and over are the fastest-growing age group in America. And by 2035, older people (65+) will outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history.

Truly, we’re not ready.

2. LONG-TERM CARE IS ESPECIALLY BROKEN.

It’s widely held that America’s health care is broken. We hold that long-term care is especially so.

Long-term care is for people, like many older adults and people with disabilities, needing help with activities of daily living, like bathing. It includes medical & non-medical services and supports that can be provided in homes, community settings, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. But it’s costly.

Median long-term care costs per year (all states):⁵

Medicare—national health insurance for Americans 65+—doesn’t cover long-term care.

Neither do most insurance plans.

High costs of long-term care translate into family caregivers—de facto health care workers—providing it most, often harming their careers and future earning potential in the process. And when families can afford long-term care, quality can be hard to find.

3. BROKEN CARE PUTS OUR PROSPERITY & SECURITY AT RISK.

Our families, care systems and economy only do as well as caregivers who keep them going. Currently, the prognosis for our future prosperity is poor because caregivers—essential workers in the response to climate change, AI concerns or any issue we care about—aren’t doing well.

Family caregivers—mostly women—are leaving jobs & losing wealth:

Family caregivers are facing health challenges:

Care professionals are quitting or taking their own lives:

In the broader environment, …

A lack of access to healthcare aids the spread of misinformation, which is linked to despair.¹⁵

Despair is itself considered a health crisis as well as national security issue:¹⁶

In the last decade, “Deaths of Despair”—premature deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide—have claimed over a million lives, precipitating a decline in our national life expectancy. ¹⁷

In addition, people in despair are more prone to manipulation by players with nefarious intent.¹⁸

4. CONNECTION IS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY & QUALITY CARE.

Now for some good news:

“As a force in shaping our health, medical care pales in comparison with the circumstances of the communities in which we live. Few aspects of community are more powerful than is the degree of connectedness and support for individuals.”¹⁹

Translation:

Caring communities—villages—are more vital for our overall health than health professionals.

#NeighborsOverDoctors

“Neighbors over doctors” isn’t to insult anyone, but to say that prevention is better than cure. And together, we can prevent the further spread of loneliness and social isolation, as well as other conditions.

Loneliness is the feeling of being alone, despite social connections. Social isolation, which can lead to loneliness, is a lack of social connections. By preventing both, we can prevent…

And potentially prevent some of these significantly: Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of dementia by 50%, stroke by 32% and heart disease by 29%.²³ On the flip side, cancer patients who feel satisfied with their level of social support have a greater chance of survival.²⁴

To repeat:

“Few aspects of community are more powerful than is the degree of connectedness and support for individuals.” The beauty is that there are countless ways to connect with and support others. What’s more, each of us—babies to centenarians—can play a part.

People feel lonely for different reasons:

One study found that adults 66-75 were likely to mention limited shopping opportunities as a source of loneliness, whereas those 44-55 were likely to mention divorce.²⁵

About half of lonely young adults in another study said that no one had taken more than a few minutes in the prior weeks to ask about them in a way that communicated genuine care.²⁶

That all means that we can help to mitigate loneliness by spending more time to say hello, taking someone to the thrift store or even going on a date! And helping with “small” things—walking a dog, folding laundry, taking out trash etc.—are big deals for someone grappling with illness or exhaustion.

And here’s something even better to consider:

While prevention is better than cure, we can surpass prevention by making prosperity on purpose.

Making prosperity on purpose means working together—connecting—to unlock personal and community VITALITY, which necessarily includes laying the groundwork for quality care.

We can prevent hunger with junk food that causes diabetes.

Or, hunger prevention isn’t the same as feeding people well. Similarly, preventing loneliness and social isolation isn’t the same as producing systems and supports to help people prosper, or to feel alive.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we [The People of Village Company 360] look forward to a world [in which groups of all ages live, work and play together in pursuit of widespread prosperity] founded upon four essential [design] freedoms:

Freedom of imagination.

Imagination is our creative power. To restrict it is to restrict our lives.

Freedom of experimentation.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it and try another. But by all means try something.

Freedom from perfection.

Failing to make progress by trying to improve all things for all people.

Freedom from exclusion.

How can we design for anyone’s prosperity if they’re not part the process?

That is no vision of a distant millennium.

It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable [as soon as we decide].

(The italicized text is quoting Roosevelt.)

If ageism is discrimination against our future selves, improving quality of life (and death) for older adults is like buying ironclad long-term care insurance. Among other things, we’re proposing village making. And more than benefiting older adults, our vision shows that it can also benefit caregivers and us ALL.

Thanks for reading and please share this message by sending folks to FourCareFacts.com.

Thank you.

References:

1. 2020 Census Will Help Policymakers Prepare for the Incoming Wave of Aging Boomers; Census.gov
2. As above.
3. How Much Care Will You Need?; Administration for Community Living at LongTermCare.gov
4. As above.
5. Genworth Cost of Care Survey; Genworth.com
6. Caregiving in The U.S. 2020; National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP; Caregiving.org
7. Caregiving in The U.S. 2015; National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP; Caregiving.org
8. The MetLife Study of Working Caregivers and Employer Health Costs: Double Jeopardy for Baby Boomers Caring for their Parents.
9. Caregiving in The U.S. 2020; National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP; Caregiving.org
10. Caregiver Depression: A Silent Health Crisis; Family Caregiver Alliance at Caregiver.org
11. As above.
12. Low-wage workers prop up the nursing home industry. They’re quitting in droves.; The Washington Post
13. Mercer’s US Healthcare External Labor Market Analysis; Mercer.us
14. Doctors’ Suicide Rate Highest of Any Profession; WebMd.com
15. Despair Undermines our Misinformation Crisis; John Templeton Foundation “Grantee Voices” at Templeton.org
16. As above.
17. As above.
18. Addressing America’s crisis of despair and economic recovery; The Brookings Institute at Brookings.edu
19. Robert Putnam as quoted in The Loneliness Epidemic; Health Resources and Services Administration at HRSA.gov
20. Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at CDC.gov
21. Loneliness in America: How the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness and What We Can Do About It; Harvard Graduate School of Education at mcc.gse.harvard.edu
22. As above.
23. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine at nap.NationalAcademies.org
24. Social Relationships, Inflammation, and Cancer Survival; Collaborative study accessed via National Library of Medicine at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
25. 2021 Consumer Wellness Survey: Loneliness; Consumer Affairs at ConsumerAffairs.com
26. Loneliness in America: How the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness and What We Can Do About It; Harvard Graduate School of Education at mcc.gse.harvard.edu