Martin Bayne

Martin Bayne (February 20, 1950 - November 6, 2020) was a blogger and advocate for assisted living who suffered from Parkinson's disease. Bayne was a former journalist and CEO of New York Long Term Care Brokers. After the onset of Parkinson's disease, he dedicated his time to supporting the elderly and advocating for retirement-home and assisted-living reform.

Early life and education

Martin Bayne was born in Binghamton, New York in 1950 and died on November 6, 2020. From October 1972 to July 1976, Bayne trained as a monk at Shasta Abbey, a Soto Zen Buddhist monastery in Mt. Shasta, California. He attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and earned his bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary sciences in 1979. He also founded New York Long Term Care Brokers in 1991, which became one of the largest insurance companies for long-term care coverage in the United States. Several years later at the age of 53, he began staying at an assisted living facility. There, he received first-hand experience of the challenges that face residents in assisted living homes. This prompted Bayne to start his blog, The Voice of Aging Boomers, in which he wrote about his experiences and advocated reform of assisted living facilities, including improved handicap accessibility, social interaction, and available equipment.

Bayne was the author of Martin Bayne on Turning the Stream of Compassion, and published an article on assisted living in the journal Health Affairs.

Bayne advocated passionately and tirelessly for elder care.

Awards In 2013, Bayne won the American College of Health Care Administrator's Public Service Award.