Elephant in the Room Archives - Page 15 of 18 - Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen

“Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me”: See it!

November 17, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Google “Glen Campbell” and you will find hundreds of links to stories about this famous and beloved entertainer and his struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. A documentary called “Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me” is opening across the country during October and November 2014, to very favorable reviews. Click here to see a film trailer.

Jim and I just saw the film on its opening day here in Houston. We not only enjoyed it, but we also highly recommend that you see the film. If you miss it, you should be able to find it on Amazon or as part of your Netflix subscription.

Although the film is on a very tough subject, it is thoroughly entertaining. It is unabashedly graphic and candid. Mr. Campbell’s ordeal is described and shown, but not ruminated on. As this Variety story states, laughter outweighs tears in the film.

It is very clear to me that Mr. Campbell and his large, well-functioning, loving, courageous family are sharing their experience to help educate and warn people to plan for long-term care, due to the impending Alzheimer’s epidemic.

The family has been accused of exploiting Mr. Campbell’s condition for personal gain. How ridiculous! They already have huge wealth, and I doubt that the film will generate much money. Even though it is excellent, it’s no blockbuster.

In one of the interviews I watched (minute 3.20), Mrs. Campbell says Mr. Campbell needed not one, but two caregivers at a time to help with lesser-known Alzheimer’s symptoms, such as agitation, nightmares and hallucinations. She says that he has now progressed to Stage 6 and lives in an Alzheimer’s specific facility.

None of the articles I read or interviews I watched disclosed the cost of Mr. Campbell’s care. It is undoubtedly exorbitant. It is also obvious to me, and I will bet my entire career on this, that he does not own long-term care insurance (LTCi). I am sure that if he owned LTCi, it would have been mentioned and praised.

Yet Mrs. Campbell appears to be composed and shows few or no signs of caregiver stress. She and her children are present and involved with her husband’s care, but not shackled to his side. Good outcomes under the circumstances described, are simply a matter of having enough money. Google Glen Campbell net worth to discover he is worth $50 million. This family has so much money that the cost of giving Mr. Campbell the very best possible care is of little consequence to them.

Few of us are as wealthy as the Campbells. If we have need and want to access high quality long-term care and all the dignity associated with it, without damaging our family or finances, there is no other option than LTCi ownership.

Human-Caused Global Warming Is Here But Denied, Just Like LTC Odds

November 2, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

According to an article in the September-October issue of Audubon Magazine by Elizabeth Kolbert, who’s written the recently released “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” 97% of all climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening.

According to a Pew Research Center Study done earlier this year asking Americans about their own beliefs in global warming, only 45% of us believe human activity was the main cause. And only 58% of us know that carbon dioxide is the gas most scientists believe causes temperatures in the atmosphere to rise.

I am pretty fascinated by this denial of climate change. It parallels denial of the need for responsible long-term care planning in so many ways. I believe the psychological denial mechanism used to avoid believing in global warming is nearly identical to denial of the high probability of needing long-term care. Both are about avoidance of the most unpleasant facts. Both issues mandate discussion and education in order to understand them properly and to do something constructive about them.

Global warming has been in the press a lot lately and is now being given the credibility it deserves. Still, important discussions about it in Washington and most states is not occurring.

For most of the 25 years I’ve been selling long-term care insurance (LTCi), the press has often misrepresented the facts and typically led articles with a negative, inflammatory bias even when some truth follows. And financial pundits have often pooh-poohed the need for LTCi.

Recently, however, the press and pundits have begun to report affirmatively on the need for LTCi and responsible LTC planning. Still, not enough of us are following their lead. In coming years, there will be a lot of Baby Boomers and their families in turmoil and crisis due to unplanned needs for LTC.

Here’s a cool website called What We Know. Its purpose is to educate the public, which hopefully, will create better public policy concerning global warming. This site is produced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The long-term care insurance (LTCi) industry has comparable, highly reputable sites with outstanding LTCi content and education. Here’s one: www.aaltci.org. Find links to several more, here.

No one seems to read these sites. Or perhaps they read them and there is some type of emotional disconnect, an inability to assimilate such inconvenient truths.

Nursing Home Infections Are Increasing…Surprise (Not!)

October 17, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Here’s an October 9, 2014 article from McKnight’s LTC News describing recently published findings that show across the board infection rates in nursing homes have surged during the past five years.

Quoting from the article, “The prevalence of viral hepatitis in nursing homes increased 48% between 2006 and 2010, the investigators determined. MDRO prevalence increased by 18% and pneumonia by 11%. The rates of urinary tract infections, septicemia and wound infections also rose.”

Here are several additional blogs I’ve done about Medicaid’s shortcomings. Because most long-term patients in nursing homes are on Medicaid (a form of Welfare), and because Medicaid’s reimbursement to nursing homes is actually less than the cost of caring for such patients, many nursing homes are unprofitable. We all agree that the most important employees in nursing homes are the custodial caregivers. These are the lowest paid people on the economic totem pole. Counter-intuitively, these critical frontline caregivers are often the first place nursing homes fire to cut expenses.

My opinion is that because of inadequate care in many Medicaid-funded nursing homes, corners are cut. Quality of care suffers. Sad outcomes then occur. This is what is causing the rapid rise of nursing home infections. It is not hard to connect the dots on this one.

Many nursing home patients end up in such facilities because they do not have money to access better care. People who own long-term care insurance (LTCi) are far less likely to wind up in Medicaid-funded nursing homes. They are far more likely to end up in preferable, far nicer assisted-living facilities.

Fighting to Honor a Father’s Last Wish: To Die at Home

October 1, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Tying into last week’s news of the new report titled “Dying on America” I will recommend two stories that bring the report into the most personal of terms.

Here’s a past blog I did describing a gripping, highly rated book called, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”. It puts what is imparted in the new report into very poignant, personal, compelling terms.

Just like the book “Knocking on Heaven’s Door, an article in the September 25, 2014 New York Times, called “Fighting to Honor a Father’s Last Wish: To Die at Home” is a heartbreaker.

Both the New York Times article and Knocking on Heaven’s Door put a human face on what “Dying in America” recommends, in the most poignant, heartbreaking ways.

The New York Times article describes a very beautiful, loving, highly functional American family. Despite the daughter’s tenacious, enduring fight to bring her father home, and at great personal sacrifice, our current system kept her father away from home. Most of his final years were spent bouncing between various forms of expensive, often negligent, in-patient care.

Home would have offered the father far more dignity and quality of life, much less suffering, at far less cost. The article beautifully, heartbreakingly, illustrates this.

Quoting from the article, “Many geriatric experts say that if the wasteful medical spending on this stage of life could be redirected, it could pay for all the social supports and services actually needed by today’s fragile elders and their families. Instead, public money has been shuffled in the same system, benefiting health care businesses but not necessarily patients.”

The changes recommended would most likely come at a net savings to the government. I hope reporting like this, combined with public lobbying, brings the recommended changes.

Failure to Plan for LTC Akin to Denial of Climate Change

September 26, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

It felt almost revelatory to realize the nearly perfect correlation between climate change deniers and people who refuse to plan responsibly for their long-term care.

Both denials appear to involve active refusal to accept facts.

According to one of many sources you may know (Google), the majority of us (77% in this instance), believe in global warming. That’s a strong majority.

This is approximately the same percentage of Baby Boomers who are concerned about their ability to pay for long-term care, depending on the study you read.

All reputable sources predict that 70% of us reaching age 65 will need long-term care at some point in our lives.

Fewer than one-third of us have saved for long-term care.

According to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, only about ten percent of us who are age and income-appropriate own long-term care insurance (LTCi).

The facts are conclusive, there’s an 8,000 pound elephant of long-term care in the room.

Here’s additional information on how unwise it is to deny the need for long-term care planning.

In the case of long-term care denial, I can give you one story after another about otherwise well-educated, affluent friends, who can afford LTCi premiums, have had first-hand experience being a caregiver, and who would be catastrophically affected if they need care for anything but a short period of time.

If I hadn’t seen in excess of 300 of the LTCi policies I’ve sold during the past 25 years pay off for my clients, if I hadn’t seen the transformative difference LTCi ownership makes, if I hadn’t been often thanked by clients for selling them their LTCi, I might almost be amused by the excuses people give me for not being willing to discuss long-term care planning with me.

I can understand hoping for the best, waging a fierce battle against the odds, and cultivation of an ever-present positive attitude. These things are helpful. This is not the same as denial. Denial is a straightforward avoidance of, a refusal to accept the facts. Such denial often leads to tragic outcomes.

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“Glen Campbell…I’ll Be Me”: See it!

Human-Caused Global Warming Is Here But Denied, Just Like LTC Odds

Nursing Home Infections Are Increasing…Surprise (Not!)

Fighting to Honor a Father’s Last Wish: To Die at Home

Failure to Plan for LTC Akin to Denial of Climate Change

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