Why You Need Long-Term Health Care Insurance
Is long-term health care insurance necessary?
Last week, Medicare funding for nursing homes was reduced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services by what is estimated at being at least $16 billion during the next 10 years. Already this year 24 states have reduced their funding for Medicaid. And in order to fund health care reform programs, the administration has already proposed the reduction of another $313 billion for Medicaid.
So what does this mean for the average individual? It means that we should not count on the government funding to provide for us when we are older. The government is already running out of money today, and this is a long time before the larger part of the boomer generation is reaching its retirement. Don't forget what happened when the boomers entered high school and they did not have sufficient classrooms available for them and they had to learn in prefab modular classrooms. You can expect to see something quite smaller then as the boomer generation continues to age and enters its golden years. You can expect to see people being crammed into prefabricated modular nursing home rooms, maybe this will be another use for those aging FEMA trailers. You should take this as a serious warning. Not to be ignored.
So what is the solution to this problem you might be asking? The thing you need to do is to look into long-term health care insurance and to do it right away.
The heaviest expense that you would have to deal with in retirement could very well be the cost of long-term custodial care, something that could hit your pocketbook harder than a drop in the stock market. But it seems that this I the topic that we are least interested in discussing. Most of the boomers have yet to be confronted with the reality of this because their parents are living longer, with the help of artificial hips, knees and replacement heart valves. But after awhile, everyone wears out.
The type of custodial care that we are talking about is the type of care that is not included in Medicare or its supplements, although there is coverage for a limited amount of skilled nursing home care following a stay in the hospital. But that is for skilled care and custodial care refers to help with the performance of such basic activities, as taking a bath, dressing, feeding, using the toilet. As of the present time the cost of providing full time care of this type or custodial care stands at nearly on average $80,000 to provide full-time custodial care, at your home or at a nursing facility.
