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The most common reason why people ignore the significance of long-term care planning is denial, majority of Americans think that they will not need any long-term care services. Another reason is the increasing cost of long-term care insurance premiums, not realizing that they might be incurring large out-of pocket expenses for ltc services. Most of the times, those who seek long-term care think about the cost of care only when the need arises and at this point, it is already too late to purchase a long-term care insurance because it is either you will be declined, or the cost of premium will be too high.
If we think of relying on spouses or children or other family members to provide care for us, think again, would you want to be a burden to your loved ones? You will leave them stressed and devastated not only physically but also emotionally and financially because caregiving is an enormous task. In addition, you will be leaving them broke because the cost of long-term care services are too high that it can drain even an ample amount of savings.
Relying on medicaid and medicare is not wise because medicare does not necessarily cover long-term care, while with medicaid, you have to spend down all your assets to become eligible. It doesn’t even assure that we will get quality care when we need it and where we need it.
Americans over 40 — in other words, us — are dangerously unaware of our likely need for long-term care when we age and woefully ignorant about the costs, according to a new poll of adults in midlife and beyond.
The telephone survey of 1,019 boomers over age 40 was conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and financed by the non-profit SCAN Foundation, which supports research and other initiatives on aging and health care. It found that many older Americans had barely begun to think about their long-term care needs, nevermind put aside money to cover them. For example, nearly 31 percent of respondents said getting older was something they’d rather not think about.
Following are other highlights from the poll, along with advice available on Next Avenue to help you avoid falling short when the time comes.
Only 16 percent of…
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