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cost of assisted living
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Anonymous
My in laws are 80 and have zero savings and no insurance. We also earn moderate salaries but certainly can't afford assisted living/nursing care for more than a month or two.. At some stage we may have to have one or both live with us, which I am dreading. Beyond that I guess they will be on the mercy of medicaid or VA benefits. I guess at an advanced stage of dementia it won't matter too much for them. I think medicaid certainly involves shared rooms etc. At that stage - horrible to say - I guess we will be praying for a swift heart attack. |
Anonymous
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The DH of a dear friend of mine was very ill and he was in the hospital for almost 6 months (various illnesses). He was 67 years old and still working for the FEDS. His health insurance did not want to keep him in the hospital any longer and he was so ill (on a respirator) that he required nursing care. They did not have a LTC policy, but he was a Vet. The nursing facilities for people on Medicaid and Vets for substandard to say the least and it was so scary and heartbreaking. He ended up dying in the hospital before he even got transferred to a nursing facility. So sad!
When I got my LTC policy, the agent told me that they do not expect people to last more than six months once they enter a nursing home. I guess this is really depressing, but probably very true.... |
Anonymous
It is depressing and sad. I try not to dwell on it too much, but the thought does enter my mind frequently. Most people in our situation prefer not to talk or think about it. They just live day by day. Maybe that is a better idea. I don't know... |
Anonymous
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And that is why when time comes to start taking medication (for this, that and everything under the sun) I plan on only taking care of things that impact my "quality" of life - like pain medication for arthritis (if I have it) for example. I won't take heart/cholesterol medication. Most people are living too long nowadays.... what is the point of living if you can't move, can't feed yourself, can't clean yourself, can't do the things you used to like like reading, listening to music, keeping a conversation, going out, etc. And if you don't remember your loved ones.... you are just a burden. I don't want to be a burden.
Anyhow, I hope I am "lucky" to live to a "good" age but not too much beyond that - and die quickly and painless. |
Anonymous
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/08/nursing_home_death.php the average length of stay before death was just under 14 months. The median stay, however, was just five months -- and 53 percent of the nursing home residents in the study pool had died within six months. |
Anonymous
This... the first part of this at least. I have zero desire to go on living beyond the point of quality of life, where death is prolonged and agonizing. If you've experienced the long decline of a parent or grandparent, within the past 10, 15 years or so you will know what I'm talking about. They aren't happy, many times. My family's experience has been heartbreaking. Read the New York Times series, "The New Old Age..." it is a tough road, and one I'd rather not go down, personally. One STRONG caveat --- I'd say as much as I believe in anything, each person needs to make these end-of-life decisions for him or herself. Every life has value. (And disrespect for the elderly, the disabled, and those who didn't "produce value for the State" was how the Nazis got started.) |
Anonymous
+1 My mother has been in a long, slow, painful, unbelievably expensive decline for 4 years or so. It is awful to watch, awful to experience, and incredibly time-consuming and draining (even though she doesn't live with me). She is in a nursing home now, and has been off all meds (except comfort care/pain meds) for 6 months. Yet, she still soldiers on. She cannot reposition herself in bed, she is 100% incontinent, she cannot eat any solids or feed herself, cannot walk. She cannot read, follow a TV program, or even a conversation, really. I pray for her to die, but she could theoretically go for years in this state, to the tune of $13K/month plus incidentals. People have NO idea what they may be in for with aging parents. NO idea. I look at her Medicare bills and am astonished at what it costs to keep her alive like this. No wonder seniors consume something like 85% of our national health care costs. And for what? I will kill myself before I put my kids through this, 30 years down the road. |
Anonymous
| I agree. Bring on the death panels. what quality of life has my 98-yr old grandmother had for the last decade: bedridden, incontinent, unable to recognize most of her family.... |
Anonymous
Exactly. I'm quite sure that the people talking about death panels are in their 20's-40's and have healthy, functioning senior parents. Once you see firsthand what the aging process looks like in the context of medical "advances," boy, does perspective change. This is a great piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/opinion/15brooks.html?src=recg The fiscal crisis is driven largely by health care costs. We have the illusion that in spending so much on health care we are radically improving the quality of our lives. We have the illusion that through advances in medical research we are in the process of eradicating deadly diseases. We have the barely suppressed hope that someday all this spending and innovation will produce something close to immortality. But that’s not actually what we are buying. As Daniel Callahan and Sherwin B. Nuland point out in an essay in The New Republic called “The Quagmire,” our health care spending and innovation are not leading us toward a limitless extension of a good life. Years ago, people hoped that science could delay the onset of morbidity. We would live longer, healthier lives and then die quickly. This is not happening. Most of us will still suffer from chronic diseases for years near the end of life, and then die slowly ... our main achievements today consist of devising ways to marginally extend the lives of the very sick.” Again, I ask: To what end are we keeping people alive? Do we all really want a longer life, if this is so very often what it looks like? There has to be a better way. |
Anonymous
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Agree with the above that there must be a better way to address end of life.
Here's a recent story from the Beacon, a newspaper for older adults in the DC area, on the costs of long-term care. DC has the highest assisted living costs in the country, according to a report from MetLife. Jump in long-term care costs Nursing home and assisted living rates rose significantly from 2009 to 2010, according to the “Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs” by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Washington, D.C. has the highest assisted living costs in the nation, at an average monthly base rate at $5,231. Rates are somewhat lower in the two other area locations in the survey: Northern Virginia is $4,410 per month and Silver Spring, Md. is $4,104. Across the U.S., assisted living rates rose 5.2 percent on average to $3,293 per month, or $39,516 per year. Private room nursing home rates rose 4.6 percent to $229 per day or $83,585 per year. These increases come on top of increases from 2008 to 2009 when both nursing home and assisted living costs were up 3.3 percent. In Washington, D.C. the average cost of a private room is $290 per day and a semi-private room is $272. Alexandria-area nursing homes are $247 for semi-private and $292 for private, while rates in Silver Spring are $247 for semiprivate and $269 for private rooms. Costs for home health aides and adult day services were unchanged in the past year. Home health aide costs remain at an average price of $21 per hour, while adult day services costs are still $67 per day. The cost is lower than the average, at $20 per hour, in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and Silver Spring. But adult day costs in D.C. costs $96 per day, while it is $76 in Silver Spring and $78 inNorthern Virginia $78. For assisted living, the Washington, D.C. area had the highest average monthly base rate at $5,231. Baltimore’s average rate is $4,028. "The cost of care in nursing homes and assisted living has been and continues to be high and, in the past year, the increases have even outpaced medical care inflation of about 3 percent," said Sandra Timmermann, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute. "While families continue to provide the lion's share of care, paid care is commonly part of the equation and the costs can derail even the best financial plan.” Current estimates from the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging indicate that nearly one million people live in approximately 39,500 assisted living residences in the U.S. The average age of an assisted living resident is 86.9 years old, and the median length of stay in assisted living is 29.3 months. Adult day services centers are seeing increasing growth as a cost-effective key provider of long-term care services. According to the report, there are more than 4,600 adult day service centers nationwide, a 35 percent increase since 2002. Those served by these centers have increased by more than 100,000 in that time period. To read the full report online, go to http://bit.ly/longtermcarecosts. A print version can be ordered by e-mailing MatureMarketInstitute@metlife.com or by writing to: MetLife Mature Market Institute, 57 Greens Farms Road, Westport, CT 06880. |
Anonymous
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My grandmother died in a wonderful nursing home in Europe about 6 years ago. She was in her mid 90's and they did not do any life-extending measures on her. She was not really ill, but very frail at the end. When the day came, the nurses called in the family and they told us that the end was near and the family sat by her bedside. She had some comfort measures, but nothing that would extend her life. She died peacefully and with dignity.
I will make sure that I have all of the legal protections in place when I get old so that my children do not have to make the awful decision to keep my alive no matter what. I'm only in my 40's and I already feel that I have lived a rich and happy life. Add another 20 or 30 years to that, I will have no regrets. I do not want my children to suffer having to take care of me. I will make this very clear. I love them too much to have to put them into this position. |
Anonymous
PP here with the mother in the nursing home, who is incontinent, cannot walk, cannot reposition herself, whose dementia precludes reading, TV-watching, or having real conversation. My mother has all of that in place, and we have not taken any extraordinary measures to keep her alive; indeed, a year ago we took her off all life-extending meds. She lives on and on in this state. It could be years. All of the legal documents in the world have not done anything to avoid this situation. |
Anonymous
Again, Medicare DOES NOT cover long term, indefinite care or assisted living care. http://www.webmd.com/medicare/medicare-and-long-term-care It sucks. |
Anonymous
Correct. Medicare is MEDICAL care. If you are poor, you will live with family, or be homeless. |
Anonymous
New PP here. My grandmother endured the same demise, living in a nursing home for years and suffering from dementia. She finally passed away at the age of 97. My own mother is now in a nursing home and has C. Diff, a horrible contagious disease, most likely acquired during a hospital stay, that has rendered her incontinent. She is absolutely skeletal. She's poor, so Medicaid pays. It breaks my heart that her dignity is being taken from her. |