Reply to What is your plan to take care of elderly parents?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Living it out now.  To my parents' credit, they bought a long term care insurance 20 years ago when they were in their early 60s.

My dad was diagnosed with a dementia ten years ago and has been in a progressive decline that required multiple hospitalizations and now a long term care facility where he's been for a year.

My mother is living alone, by choice, back at their home and is able to do so precisely because their long term care insurance is comprehensive enough that she can easily and comfortably live there.  They also met with a financial planner and an attorney and made detailed funeral/burial plans, guardianship, medical directives, financial arrangements, basically all the preplanning a person could do.

My ILs have zero plans, not even a will.  I predict a giant mess and long ago told my DH that we will never have our parents live with us.  [/quote]

My parents had a rock solid long term plan- but really when it came time to use it, it covered very little in the way of 24 hour home care and almost nothing in a facility at the end. Q: what is it covering for your Dad now and how much out of pocket now that he is in a facility?

I was unsuccessful in getting them to consider a continual care type setting when they were older but fairly healthy. I still think that is the best plan- and many  of these places are wonderful. [b]When my father did need to go to a facility for round the clock care and dementia- it was 13K a month. Who has that kind of $$? [/b]They did--but it would not have lasted that long. He died within a few months of entering. [/quote]

My mother did.  For years she lived on Social Security and a small ($500/mo) pension, not touching the savings she accumulated as a secretary.  (She did not go to college and did not work until I was 13yo.  She was not a rich woman by any means.)  By then, the principal was about $1.2M and we used the income and some of the principal to pay for her assisted living community, which was about $10k/month.  She lived for another ~4 years and still left something to her kids.

Save, save, save.[/quote]

Oh man.  I mean, that is great she had the money for that . . . but . . geez, sounds like she sure didn't live/enjoy much when she was healthy!  So tricky - how to strike a balance?  I mean, that 13K/month care when you have dementia is really not a very good $$/happy times ratio.  I'd rather be dead!  Key is how to know when to check out . . . [/quote]

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