Long Term Care

The graying of America is unavoidable, with 10,000 folks turning age 65 in the US every day. With rapidly improving medical technologies, individuals are able to live longer lives with incurable chronic illnesses, increasing our reliance on long term care. This includes the need for home health care, nursing homes and assisted living facilities which play such a predominant role in providing assistance to those in need of help with unskilled personal activities of daily living such as bathing, eating, dressing, toileting, continence and mobility.

Many do not want to rely on family members or others for help for these costs, and desire to maintain their independence and protect their life savings against rising long term care costs.  One such option is to consider a long-term care policy which can provide a safety net to protect against future long term care expenses.

As the debt of the U.S. government grows at an unprecedented rate, our country is not in a position to meet these long-term care charges for its citizens. Medicare only covers short term charges (up to 100 days) for “skilled” medical expenditures to include nursing, rehab, physical and speech therapy following a 3-day minimum hospital stay.  Individuals must spend down their assets to a minimum threshold to meet qualifications of Medicaid, after which time they lose their choice of covered care and choice of facilities for care.