long-term care Archives - Page 9 of 12 - Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen

World Getting ‘Super-aged’ at Scary Speed!

September 8, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

CNN Money just published a great article about a just-released report by Moody’s Investment Service. It is about how rapidly much of the world is aging, and how disastrous this will be for the world economy.

The article states that by 2020, 13 countries will be “super-aged” – with more than 20% of the population over 65.

That number will rise to 34 nations by 2030. Only three qualify now: Germany, Italy and Japan.

“Demographic transition … is now upon us,” warn Elena Duggar and Madhavi Bokil, the authors of the Moody’s report.

“The unprecedented pace of aging will have a significant negative effect on economic growth over the next two decades across all regions.”

This excellent interactive chart shows how much and how rapidly the world will be super-aged.

Moody’s finds that accelerating population growth will lead to slower economic growth. Will this also lead to a shortage of caregivers? I think so, especially for those without the money long-term care insurance (LTCi) provides to pay for care. This is certainly evidence that our government will not be capable of paying for the long-term care so many of us will need.

Formal long-term care planning, well in advance, with traditional long-term care insurance or the excellent asset-based LTC products now available, is the only sane way for the majority of us to ensure and conserve emotional, physical and fiscal health.

Promises That Can Bend Without Breaking

May 27, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Promises That Can Bend Without Breaking is the title of a Modern Love column in the New York Times. I am a faithful reader of Modern Love. Each column features the most intimate, interesting, and unusual aspects of loving relationships.

This column features a couple, married 28 years, who live in an assisted living facility. They are only 49 and 50 years old. He is perfectly healthy, but his wife is suffering from dementia that is comparable to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

As odd and unusual as it is to see people this young living in an assisted living facility, this is the right solution for them. With this arrangement the husband can be with his wife and safely continue his full-time job.

The column reads like an obituary of sorts, and that’s what it essentially is. The couple had a wonderful, joyous, interesting marriage for most of their 28 years together until the wife’s health issues occurred about six years ago.

Because they have the income (he is still working) I must guess they can afford assisted living, which normally runs $4,500 – $6,000 per month. (Here is Genworth’s current Cost of Care Survey.) I am nearly certain she does not own long-term care insurance.

The author talks about the marriage commitment, “until death does us part.” No doubt this commitment is much easier for this couple to uphold because sufficient money is available.

This column also illustrates the fallacy of a common objection to long-term care insurance (LTCi) purchase: “I’m too young; I’ll wait to purchase LTCi.” Sadly, at age 43, the wife in this story became uninsurable. Then she began to need the care LTCi would have paid for.

People who are insightful and mature enough to purchase LTCi in their 30’s and 40’s save a lot of money on their LTCi by capturing much lower premiums. They also lock in their policies when they are still insurable, so they don’t have to deal with unexpected tragedies without the resources of an LTCi policy.

Obamacare Doesn’t Cover Long-Term Care

January 21, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

I thank the Motley Fool. Again, they have demonstrated that they have keen insight into the cost and odds of needing long-term care. They go above and beyond most other finance advisors by urging their readers to prepare responsibly for possibly needing expensive long-term care.

In their January 18, 2014 column they (almost stridently) report that The Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare) does not pay for long-term care. They offer a two-minute video warning the public about the risk of needing expensive long-term care and not being prepared, especially later in life.

Dan Caplinger (featured in the video) is correct; long-term care insurance (LTCi) has become more expensive and the LTCi marketplace has contracted over these past few years. But reasonably priced LTCi policies are still available, the key to finding such policies is to not put off buying one.

People often complain to me that LTCi is expensive. It’s not. What’s expensive (financially, emotionally, physically) is needing long-term care for anything but a short period of time and not owning LTCi.

If long-term care is needed, LTCi policy holders normally collect back every dollar of premium they spent over the years in six months or less.

For other blogs I’ve done on the pervasiveness and irrational state of denial when it comes to reasonable, responsible long-term care planning, click here: /?s=denial

Mainstream Media Ignores the Elephant in the Room Again

January 13, 2014 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

I was momentarily excited when I read the following headline, “The World Braces for Retirement Crisis” on an AP article published December 30, 2013. I optimistically expected a story that would at the very least mention the possibility that catastrophic medical and long-term care costs would be part of the coming retirement crisis. No such luck.

Once again, I was disappointed (but not entirely surprised). The article only reported on shrinking, no longer existing retirement and pension plans that will force people to have to work longer. It didn’t make even a tiny, tangential connection between shrinking pensions, longer work lives, and how much these factors will exacerbate the existing high odds and costs of needing long-term care.

As I have reported in this blog time and time again, mainstream media usually fails to address this 5,000 pound elephant in the room: the impending Silver Tsunami of Baby Boomers in first-world countries throughout the globe, who will have long-term care expenses that they are pitifully unprepared for (see the italicized footnote below).

It’s very frustrating. The public tries at every opportunity to deny the compelling, high odds they might need long-term care. Mainstream media too often aids and abets these efforts, as this article does.

“Congressional Budget Office, 11/07 [https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/11-13-lt-health.pdf] *Total spending on health care would rise from 16% of gross domestic product today to consume nearly half of the GDP in 75 years. * Federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid would rise from 4% of GDP today to 19% in 2082. This new study shows significantly higher federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid under current law than other official projections do, which typically assume that spending grows much more slowly in the future than it has in the past. Although projections by CBO and by the Medicare trustees track each other relatively closely for the next two or three decades, by the end of 75 years, Medicare spending under CBO’s projections is about 50% higher. The study concludes that, without changes in federal law, federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid is on a path that cannot be sustained.” Source: Galen Institute, “Health Policy Matters” e-newsletter (11/16/7). Find in sources at: CBO on Health Spending Outlook 1107. URL: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/11-13-lt-health.pdf

The 70 – 70 – 70 Problem

April 8, 2013 by Honey Leave a Comment

In a ground-breaking article in the Money Section of US News & World Report (Should Long-term Care Be an Entitlement?) March 25, 2013, Philip Moeller makes the familiar point that the older population that will need long-term care (LTC) is growing and that family members who have historically provided care are fewer in number and scattered all over the globe.

Visitors to this blog are familiar with the attempt to establish a national LTC insurance program (CLASS Act), which was abandoned because of the huge costs required to provide care for all seniors in need. The annual cost of LTC is currently estimated at $725 billion, $450 billion of which is in the form of unpaid care by loved ones. And 200 billion of the remaining 275 billion real dollars come from Medicaid, an entitlement rapidly approaching bankruptcy. Direct personal spending makes up almost all of the remaining $70+ billion, and a mere $7 billion comes from LTC insurance policies.

Bruce Chernof, one of the 15 members of the newly formed national committee to study the LTC crisis, cites a common shorthand for public thinking about long-term care, which he calls the “70-70-70” problem:

70 percent of the people over age 65 will need some of long-term care during their remaining lives.

70 percent of the public does not believe they will ever need such care.

70 percent of the public thinks that if they did need such care, it is already covered by their Medicare insurance. Medicare covers only acute short-term care needs, not long-term care.

This catchy slogan captures the “DENIAL” problem that I have written about extensively in this blog, and Mr. Chernof agrees with all LTC insurance professionals regarding the desperate need for educating the public on these statistics and the importance of reasonably priced LTC insurance. Each of us can educate the public every time we speak to a local group or association, write a blog or article, or make a one-to-one presentation to a prospective client.

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World Getting ‘Super-aged’ at Scary Speed!

Promises That Can Bend Without Breaking

Obamacare Doesn’t Cover Long-Term Care

Mainstream Media Ignores the Elephant in the Room Again

The 70 – 70 – 70 Problem

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