I can’t say it any better than William Gaston in the fall edition of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (818 18th Street, NW Suite 750 Washington, DC 20006): “Medicaid already constitutes the single largest share of state budgets—24 percent, a figure that rises relentlessly year by year. State spending on the program rose by 20 percent in the most recent reporting year and by even more—23 percent—in the previous year. By the end of fiscal year 2013, total Medicaid enrollment for low-income Americans and the dependent elderly will have risen by 12.5 percent in just three years.”

“Because state revenues are growing much more slowly than Medicaid outlays, other priorities are getting squeezed. In many states, for example, public higher education—key not only to future prosperity and competitiveness but also to opportunity and mobility—is reaching a breaking point.”

“I had no idea how long-term care was financed. I soon learned that Medicare paid for at most 100 days of rehabilitation (useless in my mother’s case) and that Medicaid required beneficiaries to “spend down” nearly all their assets. Private long-term care insurance policies were available, I learned, but my parents—along with most Americans who can afford them—had not purchased one.”

Please take heed and plan responsibly, ahead of time, for a possible long-term care need.