{"id":2155,"date":"2023-12-15T15:55:41","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2023-12-15T15:55:46","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:55:46","slug":"financial-ruin-is-baked-into-the-system-readers-on-the-costs-of-long-term-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=2155","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Financial Ruin Is Baked Into the System\u2019: Readers on the Costs of Long-Term Care"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thousands of readers reacted to the articles in the \u201cDying Broke<\/a>\u201d series about the financial burden of long-term care in the United States. They offered their assessments for the government and market failures that have drained the lifetime savings of so many American families. And some offered possible solutions.<\/p>\n

In more than 4,200 comments, readers shared their struggles in caring for spouses, older parents, and grandparents. They expressed anxieties about getting older themselves and needing help to stay at home or in institutions like nursing homes or assisted living facilities.<\/p>\n

Many suggested changes to U.S. policy, like expanding the government\u2019s payments for care and allowing more immigrants to stay in the country to help meet the demand for workers. Some even said they would rather end their lives than become a financial burden to their children.<\/p>\n

Many readers blamed the predominantly for-profit nature of American medicine and the long-term care industry for depleting the financial resources of older people, leaving the federal-state Medicaid programs to take care of them once they were destitute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is incorrect to say the money isn\u2019t there to pay for elder care,\u201d Jim Castrone<\/a>, 72, a retired financial controller in Placitas, New Mexico, commented. \u201cIt\u2019s there, in the form of profits that accrue to the owners of these facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a system of wealth transference from the middle class and the poor to the owners of for-profit medical care, including hospitals and the long-term care facilities outlined in this article, underwritten by the government,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Other readers pointed to insurance policies that, despite limitations, had helped them pay for services. And some relayed their concerns that Americans were not saving enough and were unprepared to take care of themselves as they aged.<\/p>\n

What Other Nations Provide<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other countries\u2019 treatment of their older citizens was repeatedly mentioned. Readers contrasted the care they observed older people receiving in foreign countries with the treatment in the United States, which spends less on long-term care<\/a> as a portion of its gross domestic product than do most wealthy nations.<\/p>\n

Marsha Moyer, 75, a retired teaching assistant in Memphis, Tennessee, said she spent 12 years as a caregiver for her parents in San Diego County and an additional six for her husband. While they had advantages many don\u2019t, Moyer said, \u201cit was a long, lonely job, a sad job, an uphill climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, her sister-in-law\u2019s mother lived to 103 in a \u201cfully funded, lovely elder care home\u201d in Denmark during her last five years. \u201cMy sister-in-law didn\u2019t have to choose between her own life, her career, and helping her healthy but very old mother,\u201d Moyer said. \u201cShe could have both. I had to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Birgit Rosenberg, a software developer, praised the standard of care for her mother living in a German nursing home versus the care of a friend\u2019s mother in a U.S. nursing home.(Caroline Gutman for KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Birgit Rosenberg, 58, a software developer in Southampton, Pennsylvania, said her mother had end-stage dementia and had been in a nursing home in Germany for more than two years. \u201cThe cost for her absolutely excellent care in a cheerful, clean facility is her pittance of Social Security, about $180 a month,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cA friend recently had to put her mother into a nursing home here in the U.S. Twice, when visiting, she has found her mother on the floor in her room, where she had been for who knows how long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brad and Carol Burns moved from Fort Worth, Texas, in 2019 to Chapala, Jalisco, in Mexico, dumping their $650-a-month long-term care policy because care is so much more affordable south of the border. Brad, 63, a retired pharmaceutical researcher, said his mother lived just a few miles away in a memory care facility that costs $2,050 a month, which she can afford with her Social Security payments and an annuity. She is receiving \u201camazing\u201d care, he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a reminder, most people in Mexico cannot afford the care we find affordable and that makes me sad,\u201d he said. \u201cBut their care for us is amazing, all health care, here, actually. At her home, they address her as Mom or Barbarita, little Barbara.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Insurance Policies Debated<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many, many readers said they could relate to problems with long-term care insurance policies<\/a>, and their soaring costs. Some who hold such policies said they provided comfort for a possible worst-case scenario while others castigated insurers for making it difficult to access benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really make you work for the money, and you\u2019d better have someone available who can call them and work on the endless and ever-changing paperwork,\u201d said Janet Blanding<\/a>, 62, a technical writer in Fancy Gap, Virginia.<\/p>\n

Derek Sippel, 47, a registered nurse in Naples, Florida, cited the $11,000 monthly cost of his mother\u2019s nursing home care for dementia as the reason he bought a policy. He pays about $195 a month with a lifetime benefit of $350,000. \u201cI may never need to use the benefit[s], but it makes me feel better knowing that I have it if I need it,\u201d he said in his comment. He said he could not make that kind of money by investing on his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the risk you take with any kind of insurance,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a burden on anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pleas for More Immigrant Workers<\/strong><\/p>\n

One solution that readers proposed was to increase the number of immigrants allowed into the country to help address the chronic shortage of long-term care workers. Larry Cretan, 73, a retired bank executive in Woodside, California, said that over time, his parents had six caretakers who were immigrants. \u201cThere is no magic bullet,\u201d he said<\/a>, \u201cbut one obvious step \u2014 hello, people \u2014 we need more immigrants! Who do you think does most of this work?\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Raab, 67, a retired copy editor in New York, said that many older Americans must use paid help because their grown children live far away. Her parents and some of their peers rely on immigrants from the Philippines and Eritrea, she said<\/a>, \u201cworking loosely within the margins of labor regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese exemplary populations should be able to fill caretaker roles transparently in exchange for citizenship because they are an obvious and invaluable asset to a difficult profession that lacks American workers of their skill and positive cultural attitudes toward the elderly,\u201d Raab said.<\/p>\n

Federal Fixes Sought<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other readers called for the federal government to create a comprehensive, national long-term care system, as some other countries have. In the United States, federal and state programs that finance long-term care are mainly available only to the very poor. For middle-class families, sustained subsidies for home care, for example, are fairly nonexistent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a geriatric nurse practitioner in New York and have seen this story time and time again,\u201d Sarah Romanelli, 31, said<\/a>. \u201cMy patients are shocked when we review the options and its costs. Medicaid can\u2019t be the only option to pay for long-term care. Congress needs to act to establish a better system for middle-class Americans to finance long-term care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
John Reeder, a retired federal economist, called for a federal single-payer health system \u201cfrom birth to senior care in which we all pay and profit-making [is] removed.\u201d(Eric Harkleroad\/KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

John Reeder, 76, a retired federal economist in Arlington, Virginia, called for a federal single-payer system<\/a> \u201cfrom birth to senior care in which we all pay and profit-making [is] removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other readers, however, argued that people needed to take more responsibility by preparing for the expense of old age.<\/p>\n

Mark Dennen, 69, in West Harwich, Massachusetts, said people should save<\/a> more rather than expect taxpayers to bail them out. \u201cFor too many, the answer is, \u2018How can we hide assets and make the government pay?\u2019 That is just another way of saying, \u2018How can I make somebody else pay my bills?\u2019\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe don\u2019t need the latest phone\/car\/clothes, but we will need long-term care. Choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questioning the Value of Life-Prolonging Procedures<\/strong><\/p>\n

A number of readers condemned the country\u2019s medical culture for pushing expensive surgeries and other procedures that do little to improve the quality of people\u2019s few remaining years.<\/p>\n

Thomas Thuene, 60, a consultant in Boston\u2019s Roslindale neighborhood, described how<\/a> a friend\u2019s mother who had heart failure was repeatedly sent from the elder care facility where she lived to the hospital and back, via ambulance. \u201cThere was no arguing with the care facility,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, the moment all her money was gone, the facility gently nudged my friend to think of end-of-life care for his mother. It seems the financial ruin is baked into the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joan Chambers, 69, an architectural draftsperson in Southold, New York, said that<\/a> during a hospitalization on a cardiac unit she observed many fellow patients \u201cbedridden with empty eyes,\u201d awaiting implants of stents and pacemakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized then and there that we are not patients, we are commodities,\u201d she said. \u201cMost of us will die from heart failure. It will take courage for a family member to refuse a \u2018simple\u2019 procedure that will keep a loved one\u2019s heart beating for a few more years, but we have to stop this cruelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to remember that even though we are grateful to our health care professionals, they are not our friends. They are our employees and we can say no.\u201d<\/p>\n

One physician, James Sullivan, 64, in Cataumet, a neighborhood of Bourne, Massachusetts, said he planned to refuse<\/a> hospitalization and other extraordinary measures if he suffered from dementia. \u201cWe spend billions of dollars, and a lot of heartache, treating demented people for pneumonia, urinary tract infections, cancers, things that are going to kill them sooner or later, for no meaningful benefit,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cI would not want my son to spend his good years, and money, helping to maintain me alive if I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Considering \u2018Assisted Dying\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Others went further, declaring they would rather arrange for their own deaths than suffer in greatly diminished capacity. \u201cMy long-term care plan is simple,\u201d said Karen Clodfelter<\/a>, 54, a library assistant in St. Louis. \u201cWhen the money runs out, I will take myself out of the picture.\u201d Clodfelter said she helped care for her mother until her death at 101. \u201cI\u2019ve seen extreme old age,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019m not interested in going there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some suggested that medically assisted death should be a more widely available option in a country that takes such poor care of its elderly. Meridee Wendell<\/a>, 76, of Sunnyvale, California, said: \u201cIf we can\u2019t manage to provide assisted living to our fellow Americans, could we at least offer assisted dying? At least some of us would see it as a desirable solution.\u201d<\/p>\n