Protect Your
Assets from Nursing Homes in old age 
Average cost of Nursing Home care in Ca. $120, 450,-Private
Room
Average cost of Nursing Home care in Ca. $90, 885,-
semi-Private Room
Average cost of Nursing Home care Nationwide. $90, 520,-Private
Room
Average cost of Nursing Home care Nationwide . $81, 030,-Semi-Private
Room
A Nursing home is becoming extremely costly here in the U.S,
while at the same time becoming more and more necessary. According to the Ca.
Association of Health Care Facilities nearly 400, 000 Californians reside in
nursing homes and that number is expected to continue to rise higher until it
doubles in 2050, before we then start to see a decline.
The cost of living in a nursing home in Ca. in 2018 was a
staggering $275 per day, about $91,000 dollars annually per person and this
number could be higher if you live in an upscale facility with a private room,
these figures are for semi-private rooms. To show you the financial burden this
exposes people to the cost of a 3 bedroom home in Los Angeles, Ca, in an
above-average neighborhood is comparable. So if you are a homeowner or business
owner, you could lose everything with one illness. It’s becoming more and more
common every day. One of the problems is that not enough people realize this
and take it seriously enough. They don’t see the necessity to spend money on
this because it’s not going to happen to them. Now the cost of assisted
living is much more reasonable, but in order to be able to stay at one of
these homes you have to be able to take care of your own daily functions, like
bathing, going to the restroom and moving about. If you’re in decent health,
this is a more reasonable option, but
still expensive, estimated at around $41,000 per year.
Look at this powerful video below from AIG. It describes how
a young woman becomes ill and unable to work and the trauma that it causes her
and her family.
Fortunately, there are solutions, one
of them is talked about in the video, which I will get to later in this article.
The age of people living in these types of homes is getting younger, as we begin to
have more health issues at an earlier age for various reasons. We are becoming
a society of unhealthy people. Now the belief that most people have these days
is that nursing homes or rest homes are for the elderly. At the time of this
article, roughly 15%
of nursing home patients were under the age of 65.
https://vimeopro.com/aigmarketing/main/video/300856542
Also, we are living
longer, about
33% of the residents are age 85 or older because modern medicine is
prolonging our lives, many are over the age of 95. It’s not uncommon to see people
live this long. Women make up 52 percent
and men the other 48. The numbers are getting larger and present a huge problem
on the horizon.
The certification data on home health agencies and nursing
homes used in this report are primarily for Medicare or Medicaid certified
providers. The largest single payer for long-term nursing home care is
Medicaid, whereas Medicare finances hospice costs and a major portion of the
costs for short-stay post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities for Medicare
beneficiaries for 21 days, (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related
Statistics, 2012; The SCAN Foundation, 2013).
People Often
Lose Their Life Savings.
Now for the places that are paid for by Medicaid, you must be
at or below the poverty level before they will start to pay. Many times, paying
for nursing homes will often bankrupt the person who winds up in this situation,
wiping out their finances before they reach the level at which the state will
pay. If you aren’t prepared for this expense, it could be devastating because
no one really knows when they will become ill. Again, Medicare will pay for short stays in a nursing
home, if you’re released from the hospital for about 21 days, but after that, you must cover the expense on your own. Fortunately, the law will protect the
spouse of someone in a nursing home on Medicaid in Ca. , as long as the deceased
passed away after Jan. 01, 2017.
How Do You Protect Yourself from These Cost?
Let’s look at some of the different
options. In the video above the young lady had purchased a life insurance
policy which what included was called Living Benefits. This is an option if you
purchase this while you’re still relatively young because once you reach a
certain age these benefits are no longer available. A certain percentage of the
face amount can be paid while the insured is still alive. This can be used to
cover some of the expenses of a nursing home stay. Also, there is Long Term Care
(LTC) Insurance, which will cover a good portion of the cost, depending upon
the time of your stay at the facility. There is even an LTC rider available on some Life Insurance
policies. However, if you wait until you’re older LTC becomes expensive or not
available at all. A young person, who get a Life Insurance policy with an LTC
Rider can have a payment that is extremely reasonable. Yes, you will probably
pay the monthly premium for quite some time, but working all your life
with the possibility of losing a good portion or all of the finances due to an
illness, that might possibly be worse.
There are also different legal
options available such as Annuities and Trust options available, which a whole
completely different article could be written. Often times this will require
the services of an attorney to make sure that they are legal. Another option is
that the assets could be transferred to a spouse, but again there are legal
restrictions that need to be considered before something like this is considered,
as to make sure that Medicaid’s rules and regulations are followed. There are
Attorneys that specialize in Medicaid and it would probably be a good idea to
consult with one if you become ill and you have assets that you could lose.
In Summary:
An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure. We work extremely hard and it’s very difficult to become
successful these days. We’re not always thinking about our future and the
possibility of us having an illness in our elder years, but the odds say yes. Consult
a licensed insurance agent or legal advisor. They have the training and
resources to come up with a plan that will help you to protect your assets. I
understand that it might be difficult to ask for help and even more difficult
to look at our own vulnerability in our lives, but it’s something that
responsible people do.
If you have any questions please
feel free to reach out to me, I’m always more than willing to help because I
understand. I will do my best to try and be of service to you and your family,
always.
Willie Ware
818-915-0534
Aware Insurance Services
Bill@awareinsurance.com
