BY JOE BRISBEN
A powerful influence on my life began in March 1955, when my 83-year-old maternal grandmother, Lettie Quinn, who had been suffering from dementia, fell on an icy street and broke her hip. The experience was so painful and shocking that she became completely disoriented.
A surgeon placed a pin in her hip but swore that she would never walk again. But she did. She swore that she saw my grandfather’s spirit emerge and then descend into a bedpost. For what seemed like hours a day, she would scream at the top of her lungs, get out of bed, and limp around her house.
One of the few things that calmed her down was for us to play Gene Autry records on a phonograph. To this day, I have a soft spot in my heart for Gene Autry.
My parents hired two women to care for her around the clock six days a week, paying them a dollar an hour. My job was to help prepare meals and carry them from my house across the street to Grandma Quinn’s house. I also mowed her lawn, weeded her garden, shoveled her sidewalk and driveway in winter, and tended a vegetable garden that helped put food on the table.
My grandmother had no mortgage on her house. Nevertheless, I calculate that salaries, food, medical care, and drugs in the two-and-a-half year period from the time Grandma Quinn broke her hip until she died cost my parents about $24,000.
I had another insight about 25 years ago. When my father was still alive, I would visit him from time to time after he moved from Enid, Oklahoma, to Sun City, Arizona. On one trip, one of his friends asked me, “How do you think your dad is doing?”
“Fine,” I replied.
“Don’t you believe it,” she countered. “When you get to be our age, there is something wrong with every single one of us.”
Now that I have entered my seventh decade of life, I have firsthand experience of this. Moreover, thanks to advances in medicine and growing knowledge on health issues, senior citizens can look forward to living longer—and having more things go wrong with them physically.
The average cost of a nursing home currently runs $3,000 to $4,000 a month, so what my parents spent on my grandmother in two-and-a-half years would be gone today in six to seven months. Given that scenario and the desire by most people to protect their assets during retirement, they should take a long, hard look at long-term care insurance.
Even though people are living longer, more are requiring expensive assistance in their later years. Long-term care insurance can provide health care services in the home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home.
From what I have seen, most families cannot provide the care my parents gave my grandmother more than five decades ago. Family members may not live near the parent, as I did with my father. They may have other pressing commitments or simply cannot get the time off work. In the meantime, the elderly need help with activities that we take for granted: like eating, bathing, and going to the restroom.
The Health Insurance Association (HIAA) estimates 48.6 percent of people age 65 or more may spend some time in a nursing home and 71.8 percent of them use some form of health care.
In addition, less and less of nursing home costs are paid by Medicare Part A. The HIAA estimates that average annual nursing home cost now exceed $40,000.
The greatest difficulty with long-term care is the lack of preparation for the costs incurred when the elderly require assistance in paying for care. Some people can pay for the care out of their own pockets. Others will qualify for welfare under Medicaid, but most people fall in the middle.
When people work hard all their lives, why should they lose most of their savings to a nursing home?
A long-term care insurance policy can help protect assets from the rising costs of health care and allow the elderly to remain financially and socially independent. The insurance can secure not only the elderly’s financial future but also that of their families.
But don’t take my word for it. See your friendly neighborhood financial advisor or insurance agent.
BY JOE BRISBEN
A powerful influence on my life began in March 1955, when my 83-year-old maternal grandmother, Lettie Quinn, who had been suffering from dementia, fell on an icy street and broke her hip. The experience was so painful and shocking that she became completely disoriented.
A surgeon placed a pin in her hip but swore that she would never walk again. But she did. She swore that she saw my grandfather’s spirit emerge and then descend into a bedpost. For what seemed like hours a day, she would scream at the top of her lungs, get out of bed, and limp around her house.
One of the few things that calmed her down was for us to play Gene Autry records on a phonograph. To this day, I have a soft spot in my heart for Gene Autry.
My parents hired two women to care for her around the clock six days a week, paying them a dollar an hour. My job was to help prepare meals and carry them from my house across the street to Grandma Quinn’s house. I also mowed her lawn, weeded her garden, shoveled her sidewalk and driveway in winter, and tended a vegetable garden that helped put food on the table.
My grandmother had no mortgage on her house. Nevertheless, I calculate that salaries, food, medical care, and drugs in the two-and-a-half year period from the time Grandma Quinn broke her hip until she died cost my parents about $24,000.
I had another insight about 25 years ago. When my father was still alive, I would visit him from time to time after he moved from Enid, Oklahoma, to Sun City, Arizona. On one trip, one of his friends asked me, “How do you think your dad is doing?”
“Fine,” I replied.
“Don’t you believe it,” she countered. “When you get to be our age, there is something wrong with every single one of us.”
Now that I have entered my seventh decade of life, I have firsthand experience of this. Moreover, thanks to advances in medicine and growing knowledge on health issues, senior citizens can look forward to living longer—and having more things go wrong with them physically.
The average cost of a nursing home currently runs $3,000 to $4,000 a month, so what my parents spent on my grandmother in two-and-a-half years would be gone today in six to seven months. Given that scenario and the desire by most people to protect their assets during retirement, they should take a long, hard look at long-term care insurance.
Even though people are living longer, more are requiring expensive assistance in their later years. Long-term care insurance can provide health care services in the home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home.
From what I have seen, most families cannot provide the care my parents gave my grandmother more than five decades ago. Family members may not live near the parent, as I did with my father. They may have other pressing commitments or simply cannot get the time off work. In the meantime, the elderly need help with activities that we take for granted: like eating, bathing, and going to the restroom.
The Health Insurance Association (HIAA) estimates 48.6 percent of people age 65 or more may spend some time in a nursing home and 71.8 percent of them use some form of health care.
In addition, less and less of nursing home costs are paid by Medicare Part A. The HIAA estimates that average annual nursing home cost now exceed $40,000.
The greatest difficulty with long-term care is the lack of preparation for the costs incurred when the elderly require assistance in paying for care. Some people can pay for the care out of their own pockets. Others will qualify for welfare under Medicaid, but most people fall in the middle.
When people work hard all their lives, why should they lose most of their savings to a nursing home?
A long-term care insurance policy can help protect assets from the rising costs of health care and allow the elderly to remain financially and socially independent. The insurance can secure not only the elderly’s financial future but also that of their families.
But don’t take my word for it. See your friendly neighborhood financial advisor or insurance agent.