Jun 15, 2006 8:12 pm US/Eastern
The Benefits Of Long Term Care Insurance
by Sara Underwood
BOSTON (CBS4) ―
Diana Plucienknowski and her husband were an active, healthy couple, until knee surgery sidelined Vic.
"He was in a rehab unit for a while," said Diana.
After the surgery, Diana went back to work. "He still needed help with getting in the shower and moving around, and medications."
Thankfully, their long term care policy paid for some help.
Without it, they would have had to pay out of pocket. And that's something more and more people may have to do now that a new law makes it harder for those of us without long term care policies to turn to Medicaid for help.
The law says if you have 500-thousand dollars in home equity, you won't get Medicaid at all. And if you recently transferred more than 55-thousand dollars in assets to a family member---say to pay for college---no Medicaid for at least five years.
"The deficit reduction act promotes people to start to plan ahead and start caring for themselves later in life instead of depending on the government," said Kristin Arnold of Bankrate.com.
What's more, if you do use Medicaid to pay for long term care--the law says some of your assets could go to Uncle Sam--and not to your heirs! Of course, you could try to pay for it yourself!
"Typically, a day in a nursing home costs an average between 150 to 200 dollars, that's basically the cost of a 4 or 5 star hotel."
Diana says she's glad she purchased a long term health care policy and says anyone with assets should also consider it. "You hope you don't ever have to use it, but it protects draining down your assets."
Policies start at about 2-thousand dollars a year.
But with inflation--ten years from now, a single year in a nursing home could cost as much as 200-thousand dollars.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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