Will Long-Term Care Matter to You? Likely.
This is one that you won’t have to think about…unless you, or a parent, needs long-term care. And since 60% of people 65 and older will need long-term care there’s a very good chance you’ll be faced with it sometime in your life. If you do the math, for an individual and two parents, the odds increase to about 93.6%. Add a spouse, and in-laws and your odds go up from there.
What is long-term care? It’s a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods of time. Long-term care isn’t just end-of-life care in a nursing home, and it’s not exclusively for the very old. Even those under 65 may need long-term care if injured, or chronically ill. Long-term care may occur in a person’s home, assisted living facility, or nursing home.
Long-term care can be very expensive, who pays for it? About half of long-term care is paid for by Medicaid. Since Medicaid is a government program for the poor, many people have to spend down their resources before they qualify for it. Other options for paying for care include long-term care insurance, reverse mortgage and self-insurance, though the latter is usually only possible for the wealthy.
Where can you learn more about long-term care? Kiplinger.com has an great feature on their site called, Long-Term Care Center. I’d recommend starting with the excellent(Aegis Award Winner) video on the subject. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintains a site on the topic at www.longtermcare.gov.
Other potentially helpful links:
Medicare on Long-Term Care
National Care Planning Council
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[...] Will Long-Term Care Matter to You? Likely. About half of long-term care is paid for by Medicaid. Since Medicaid is a government program for the poor, many people have to spend down their resources before they qualify for it. Other options for paying for care include long-term care insurance, reverse mortgage and self-insurance [...]