Long
term care can be an expensive burden for many older people.
Few people can afford to pay the often-astronomical costs
of long term care out of their own pockets for very long.
Nationally, costs of long term care are about $50,000 per
year. Home health care services provided just three
days a week could cost more than $18,000 a year. Medicare
provides only limited nursing home and home health coverage.
Medicaid requires an individual to spend almost all of his
or her savings and assets before becoming eligible for nursing
home coverage. This is one of the main reasons that
individuals need long term care insurance assistance.
Private
Medigap policies only fill in gaps left by Medicare and does
not extend coverage for long term care beyond Medicare limits.
Employee group health and major medical plans cover acute
illnesses, but provide very limited long term care coverage. Consequently,
many people look to the private sector for long term care
as a way to cover the catastrophic costs of nursing
home care and other long term care services.
Long
term care is different from other types of insurance in that
it is designed specifically to pay for some long term care
services. Long term care is not a substitute for either
Medicare or Medigap insurance. Instead, it covers services
neither of these includes. Moreover, availability of
these policies is very limited because of restrictions on
the age of potential purchasers, health screening, and the
absence of policies in many geographic areas.
Long
term care is a relatively new form of insurance. Long
term care policies vary considerably in cost and benefits.
The lack of consistency among long term care policies can
make it difficult to compare policies. A long term care
insurance comparison checklist will allow you to evaluate
several different long term care insurance policies as you
try to decide which policy to purchase. It lists the
major elements and provisions of long term care insurance
and some guidelines that may be considered as minimum standards
when evaluating and comparing long term care insurance policies.
Your
financial decision as to whether to purchase long term care
insurance will be based on a number of factors: your
assessment of your chances of entering a nursing home for
a relatively long period of time; what services long term
care insurance will cover; other resources, especially family
support available to you relating to the provision of long
term care, and the cost of a long term care insurance policy. |
