Long-term Anxiety

By Quinn Phillips Senior citizens in the United States, unlike most younger Americans, have many of their basic needs paid for by the federal government. Social Security provides a meager but steady source of income, while Medicare covers most necessary health care at minimal out-of-pocket expense (especially if combined with private "Medigap" supplementary insurance). It may be tempting to think that once you've reached the age of 65, your health-related financial worries are over. But this is far from true for many Americans, in large part because of one major expense for which most people are unprepared: the cost of long-term care. According to an article published earlier this year in US News & World Report, the average yearly cost of a private room in a nursing care facility in 2012 was $90,520. A semiprivate room wasn't exactly a steal, either, costing an average of $81,030. When you consider that the average nursing home stay is 835 days — that's two years, three months — and that the median annual income of seniors is $35,107, it's obvious that most seniors just can't pay that kind of money. But as a survey released last week makes clear, most seniors aren't adequately insured against these enormous expenses. An article on the survey — published by HealthDay, which also commissioned the survey — showed that 68% of Americans are worried about how they'll pay for long-term care for themselves or a family member. Fully 87% of respondents categoriz...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs