- Do you actually know what long term care is?
- Do you know how much long term care costs?
- Do you and your family have a plan in place for long term care (especially for your parents and/or grandparents)?
Answer to #1:
Long term care is defined as a range of services and supports you or a loved one may need to meet health or personal needs over a long period of time. Most long-term care is not medical care, but rather assistance with the basic personal tasks of everyday life, sometimes called “Activities of Daily Living,” such as:
- Bathing
- Dressing
- Using the toilet
- Transferring (to or from bed or chair)
- Caring for incontinence
- Eating
The national average cost for nursing homes is approximately $105.00 per day. Assisted living ranges anywhere from $50-$90 per day depending on where you live. You can easily spend $50,000 to $80,000 per year staying in a nursing home. These costs can quickly wipe out a lifetime savings, not to mention the emotional effect long term care has on a family.
A study conducted at Harvard University showed that 69% of single people and 34% of married couples would exhaust their assets after 13 weeks (3 months) in a nursing home...
Answer to #3:
Contrary to popular belief, the government isn't going to pay for long term care at home, in a nursing home or in an assisted living center. Did you hear that people???? The. Government. IS NOT. GOING. TO. PAY.
Medicare pays 100% of long term care for 20 days and all but $137.50 per day (as of 2010) for the next 80 days and after that NOTHING. (Medicare will pay for skilled care, but most long term care is not deemed as "skilled care").
People, I don't tell you these facts to scare you or bore you, I try to share this information with you to keep you informed. The National Clearing House for Long Term Care tells us that over 70% of the people ages 65 and older will need some form of long term care during their lifetime, 40% of those will need care in a nursing home facility.
My question to you today is, what's your plan in this scenario?
Listen, I'm 26-years-old and I've already got my ducks in a row as far as DISABILITY planning. But, my parents have ZERO long term care insurance or protection. What does that mean for my family? What happens if mom or dad becomes too sick to take care of themselves?
Many people are under the impression that if something were to happen to one or both of their parents, that they could take care of them. However, I challenge you with these questions. Could you afford to...
- Leave your home.
- Leave your job.
- Uproot your family.
The government was set to provide a long term care program (CLASS) as it was a part of health care reform, but in a previous post I wrote about how CLASS didn't make it through because it was doomed to fail financially.
Insurance carriers are dropping like flies left and right in this marketplace and there may not be any left to provide long term care insurance coverage. Why do you say? Because people are collecting claims like crazy and insurance companies are losing TONS OF MONEY. Unum lost over $400M in 2011 alone because of their LTCI block of business.
With people living longer and diseases that used to be fatal now having treatments that keep sick people alive for longer, we have A LOT of people that are going to need long term care in the future. This thought scares me and it should scare you too because nobody is addressing this issue and what the plan is... Our country will be forced to go back to "grass roots" morals and values and care for our elderly because I can guarantee families will not be able to afford the rising costs of long term care, especially if there aren't any insurances left to cover the costs.
Times they are a changin'...
I hope you learned something from this post. If nothing else, I hope I got you thinking about what your family is planning.
On a lighter note, tomorrow is Friday! Yahoo!
More to come on this topic from me because I'm passionate about it... Thanks to those who made it through!
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