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The longer you live, the greater the chance you will have an injury, illness, or chronic disability that calls for prolonged medical care outside a hospital setting. This includes services in:
Nursing homes
Assisted living facilities
Your own home
Adult day care centers
Will I need long-term care, even if I'm healthy now? Over 60 percent of people over 65 years old will require
long term care at some point in their lives,
and 40 percent of people receiving long term care services are working-age adults between the ages of 18 and 64.1
Long term care costs are increasing every day. The national average annual cost for nursing home care is $52,000 per year. Even getting care at home is an expensive proposition. The average annual cost for home care services is over $20,000.2 That number is expected to rise to $68,000 a year by 2030. Nationwide, home health care costs have increased more than 400% in the last five years.3
Doesn't my healthcare plan take care of long term care costs? In most cases it does not. Health plans may cover some of the skilled medical services you may need when you can't care for yourself after an illness or injury, but they typically don't cover ongoing chronic care, such as an extended stay in an assisted living facility or a continuing need for a home health aide to help you in and out of bed. No health plan that we know of will cover all of your long term care needs.
Doesn't the government, Medicare or Medicaid take care of long term care expenses? Medicare doesn't pay for many long term care expenses, and Medicaid doesn't start paying until virtually all of your assets have been depleted. The government has recently instituted a long term care program for military employees and retirees, but even this has limitations. See the comparison chart for details.
The Military Advantage Long Term Care Program | Long Term Care Homepage
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Notes:
1Conning & Company, "Long Term Care Insurance - Baby Boom or Bust?", 1999, page 13
2American Council of Life Insurers, April 2, 2002
3University of Minnesota, http://www.telehomecare.umn.edu, January 2001
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