Social benefit?
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California has some social programs for senior care, MediCare etc. You paid for it but you won’t be able to use it after moving out.
From the point of California, it may make sense to encourage people to retire out of state. This way the state government gets tax revenue but don’t need to spend.
My guess is he’s going to fair better in AZ where it’s not bankrupt.
Senior care in CA is a nightmare. In my mother’s last three years it was $219,000 a year out of pocket - no help from the state or feds. Thank God she lived her financial life like the Great Depression was still on. Much cheaper here in AZ.
And you need to be dirt poor to get the Medicaid (MediCal) benefit. The only folks CA isn’t losing are the poorest ones.
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The state helps if you don’t have any assets. They took almost all of my grandpa’s pension and social security each month. My mom asked how anyone without a pension could afford it. They told her the state funds it.
Should everyone here buy a good long term care package?
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I already did. All you have to do is marry someone 20 years younger
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How do you make sure it is reliable as an insurance policy? Plus, your wife might be too tired and she needs to hire caregiver for you.
No. Total waste. Put the premiums into the stock market and hope for the best. You’ll likely never collect on those things. My mom had one through Met Life. Paid less than 0.10 on the dollar all told. Will never buy one myself.
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No. It’s wiser to shield assets so you’re poor on paper then it’ll be free.
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More reliable than insurance. She can hire help if needed.
You mean MetLife paid 10% of her total cost of care? How do you compare the amount of reimbursement against the promised benefit? And compare against the total premium paid?
I have a HSA account. Not sure whether I should get money out now or leave it there for it to grow and use it replace long term care insurance?
Yeah, they paid about 10% of the costs. We barely recovered 30 years worth of premiums assuming no return on the money and not adjusting for inflation. Their paperwork is a nightmare; beyond the abilities of anyone in cognitive decline and certainly beyond the abilities of the less than literate and numerate caregivers one finds in the Bay Area. Even the highest end service providers - one of which wanted $280,000 a year - would not contractually agree to recover long care insurance money, only to try to. And they were quite clear about their success rate being less than 100%. Really, its a scam, at least with Met Life which I believe has now pulled out of the CA market. They subcontract out much of the paperwork so they can always point fingers at someone else when no payment is made. And they use any excuse. If a check to a caregiver is cancelled on the back with a red stamp and that stamp doesn’t show up on the pdf provided by the bank - only the signed front of it - they won’t accept it.
There are lots of long term care ads recently. If insurance company is bad and the government won’t take care of you when you are not very poor, maybe your only hope is family and savings.
But I think kids won’t take care of parents unless they are unemployed. The best bet is the wife. But this won’t work for woman since they live longer.
Some traditional Chinese Americans are doing it (taking care of their elders) on their own. We are, and my good friend’s family are also doing it, with hired nearly 24 hour care. In the city, it is cheaper to find someone but out in the burbs a tad tougher. I am sure some families are resorting to senior housing communities like Aegis Garden but it is very expensive. More than $5k per month, depending on needs, and out of your own pocket. This is why you better own property or save up…
Seems that senior care is the great wealth transfer. If you work hard to save, but if you are bed ridden for 20 years, 2M might not be enough.
Yep.
5k a month would be cheap and all those places have entrance exams so if you arrive sick enough to really need to be there you can’t be there. Went through that with my mom.
Once you’re indigent Medicaid warehouses you someplace. If it’s any consolation you might well be too out-of it by that time to notice how crappy the accommodations are.
My dad died at Lytton gardens in Palo Alto. If no family member or paid caregiver dropped in around mealtime it was unlikely he would get any food because of the help and encouragement he needed with eating. He was supposed to get physical therapy. Once he was transferred out of his bed he always needed to defecate. Once that was taken care of there was a waiting line in the exercise room. He would end up getting 5-10 minute of “exercise.” Medicare was billed for one hour. That’s Palo Alto. So don’t feel too bad if you end up in some Medicaid dump. Even the expensive options are often poor.
In Russia long term care is $500/m
In Mexico $1500/m for much better care than here.