his notes are EXACTLY my experience. bookmark it.
Same here…three times so far.
Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
61–70 of 210 posts
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#62There are three things a nation needs to accept about universal health care: (1) It’s expensive (2) Everybody has to pay (3) The government’s gotta run it
It’s not a matter of acceptance. We can’t accept the cost of anything consistently growing at a rate faster than GDP. That’s just math, not ethics or political choice theory or anything else. Health care cost growth is going to slow one way or the another.
It has more to do with demand than being anything. Demand for healthcare is highly inelastic. If the price of Pokémon’s grew faster than GDP consistently we would be fine. But if the price of a necessity for life does, we will not be fine.
This is why life necessities are often treated as a public responsibility. Health care is one of the few that is treated as a luxury.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#63There are three things a nation needs to accept about universal health care: (1) It’s expensive (2) Everybody has to pay (3) The government’s gotta run it
>The government’s gotta run it But there are plenty of countries with functioning healthcare systems that are private? The Swiss, for instance. Moreover depending on what counts as "government’s gotta run it" (paying for it? administering it? actually providing care?) you can argue that the German or even Canadian systems aren't government run, at least to some degree.
I've heard good things about the Dutch system of healthcare and that it may be adoptable to the US. I'd totally agree that healthcare corporations become non profit like Kaiser here in the US. They aren't perfect, but they seem to be better than the their for profit competitors.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#64I wonder if moving his father to an assisted living facility at some point will be a better option. I have little experience with this topic so I am genuinely curious.
In my experience, these facilities are all in crisis. They can't find people to staff the facilities and provide care and when they do, they can't afford to pay them. My father has a neurodegenerative disorder and we've struggled to find a place that will provide consistent care. My mother, a retired nurse, is the one who tends to do a significant amount of the work to feed, clean, and otherwise care for him despite…
Oh wow, that's frustrating! I hope you find someone to provide consistent care at a reasonable price. Btw do your parents live in a state with high cost of living or this is a general situation across the country?
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#65> they each paid about $14,000 in annual premiums for 10 years, and the daily benefit started at $200 per day. Insurance companies have to make money, but that's not that good of a deal, and the payout isn't that high ($73k annually) considering you won't be doing much else.
Consider also that by the time you need a nursing home or some other form of continual skilled care you are probably going to die within that year.
"Long-Term" is sort of a scare tactic that is used to get you imagining that you're going to be needing expensive skilled care for years. That can happen, but isn't normal.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#66> they each paid about $14,000 in annual premiums for 10 years, and the daily benefit started at $200 per day. Insurance companies have to make money, but that's not that good of a deal, and the payout isn't that high ($73k annually) considering you won't be doing much else.
$140,000 in premium and $73,000/year in payout seems like a terrible deal for the insurance company.
Two sets of my grandparents have needed daily helpers for years. And that’s just for regular day to day care. Not in response to a particular trauma.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
There seems to be no will to replace this dysfunctional arrangement with a social safety net unfortunately.
Because injustice is corruption. So every area of our lives that feels like it doesn't work like it used to - cost of living, healthcare, education, antitrust enforcement, journalism, accountability at the highest levels - represents a segment of the economy which has been corrupted. Through this lens, socioeconomic policies start to make sense. For example, if your goal is to skim a fraction of the income from every…
So through that lens how do you explain the healthcare situation before the start of tariffs, or is your entire worldview shaped based only on the news you read in the last three days?
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#68Delay, deny, defend --- this is the insurance industry's modus operandi. Insurance is the only industry where customers are the enemy.
I’ve heard from many recent moms that Aetna regularly denies normal labor and delivery charges that are explicitly covered in their plans. That then forces you through a months long process of calling them repeatedly, tolerating hold times of 1-2 hours each time, and getting virtually no help. And maybe at the end of it, when your child is almost one year old, they may pay out. That’s for a normal delivery with no complications.
Aetna knows exhausted and stressed moms are less likely to persist. It is blatantly fraudulent but they get away with it because no one has the time or money to get their executives thrown in jail.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#69Delay, deny, defend --- this is the insurance industry's modus operandi. Insurance is the only industry where customers are the enemy.
I wrote a longer response but deleted it as it was just a personal anecdote. Suffice it to say I'll never buy LTC insurance or participate in any elder care such as "assisted living" or "nursing care." It's all (IMO) engineered to drain old people of their assets before they die. Providing care is nowhere on the list of motivations of anyone involved.
Some states are forcing you to buy LTC insurance. I’ve heard Washington does this through some convoluted laws.
Re: Financial lessons from my family's experience with long-term care insurance
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, these facilities are all in crisis. They can't find people to staff the facilities and provide care and when they do, they can't afford to pay them. My father has a neurodegenerative disorder and we've struggled to find a place that will provide consistent care. My mother, a retired nurse, is the one who tends to do a significant amount of the work to feed, clean, and otherwise care for him despite…
Oh wow, that's frustrating! I hope you find someone to provide consistent care at a reasonable price. Btw do your parents live in a state with high cost of living or this is a general situation across the country?
Midwest, so cost of living is relatively low to moderate. I don't have firsthand experience elsewhere but it's my understanding that what we experience isn't uncommon.
This is the third facility he's been in and options are limited because a lot of facilities aren't staffed to provide memory care. Unfortunately, there just aren't many options unless you're wealthy enough to have in-home care.