Quote:
Originally Posted by jump4
“Long-term care costs represent “the single largest financial risk” facing seniors and their families….
A wave of Americans has been reaching retirement age largely unprepared for the extraordinary costs of specialized care. These aging baby boomers — 73 million strong, the oldest of whom turn 77 this year — pose an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. economy, as individual families shoulder an increasingly ruinous financial burden with little help from stalemated policymakers in Washington.
The dilemma is particularly vexing for those in the economic middle. They can’t afford the high costs of care on their own, yet their resources are too high for them to qualify for federal safety-net insurance. An estimated 18 million middle-income boomers will require care for moderate to severe needs but be unable to pay for it.
“It’s this really enormous financial bomb sitting out there that most people are just hoping won’t hit them,” said Marc A. Cohen, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. “There’s an incredible amount of confusion and denial.””
What should be done? 
https://wapo.st/42pxufs |
What should be done? What CAN be done?
LTC insurance is available but if it is a new policy purchased by a person at or near retirement age is VERY expensive and is more so as one ages. But there are other options out there: the frailties of aging don't necessarily mean that nursing home/memory care placement is mandatory. Personal Care Attendant care in-home is available most places and is nickels and dimes compared to actual institutional care. Spouses can be taught to see to at least some of the increased needs of the other person.
Dad always said that if he knew he was in for a long dying process he'd take an airplane for one last ride. He never got the chance: Parkinson's meant a nursing home stay of eight years before he finally passed away. Mom however did have the opportunity. In her eighties, diabetes, bad heart, cancer survivor, diminished ambulation. She lived with my sister. One day at home she fell and broke her leg. She knew she was looking at a long bedridden time and the chances of the leg healing correctly were slim. So she called the company that monitored her pacemaker and asked them to turn hers off.
She was dead the next day.
She made the right choice.