All candidates to date have been pretty silent on the largest unfunded liability facing the boomer generation: the cost of long-term care.
As 78 million baby boomers age – the oldest are now entering their 70s – with many of them caring for family members or adding to the population that needs care, you would think pressure would grow on politicians to speak out about long-term care solutions. However, long-term care remains largely invisible in the presidential debates.
Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine predicted that when it comes to long-term care, a “major societal challenge looms without a policy roadmap to guide it.” A reason why the issue of long-term care has been mostly avoided by candidates could be because most Americans don’t anticipate needing long-term care – until they actually need it. And when that happens, they experience sticker shock, as nursing home care now costs, on average, $80,300 per year for a semi-private room. In the DC metro area, the cost is around $12,000-$14,000 a month!
“Candidates are crazy not to mention it (long-term care) because it is what most families are dealing with,” says veteran ABC News and NPR political commentator Cokie Roberts. “Fully a third of households in America are taking care of an elderly or disabled member.”
So, what happens if you can’t afford $144,000- $196,000 a year for a nursing home? You can plan for long-term care and prepare for the catastrophic costs of nursing homes, and we can help. The Medicaid program is our country’s largest health and long-term care insurer, covering one in six Americans, including two-thirds of nursing home residents and one in five persons under 65 with chronic disabilities. Do you have a loved one who is in a nursing home or nearing the need for nursing home care? Or are you simply looking to plan ahead in the event nursing home care is needed in the future? Life Care Planning and Medicaid Asset Protection is the process of protecting your assets from having to be spent down in connection with entry into a nursing home, while also helping ensure that you or your loved one get the best possible care and maintain the highest possible quality of life, whether at home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home.
