“Caregiving Needs Double as End of Life Nears,” by Maureen Salamon, HealthDay “Reliance on caregivers doubles as people near death, and half of those caregivers — typically unpaid family members — report having no time for themselves, a new study indicates. . . . Nearly nine in 10 caregivers are unpaid, according to the study. For end-of-life caregivers who were spouses, nearly two-thirds reported receiving no help from family or friends. . . . The study was published recently in the journal Health Affairs.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): This research screams “plan
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“How Long Will $1 Million Stretch In Retirement?,” Advisor Magazine “Mississippi is the state where your dollar will last the longest amount of time in retirement, while Hawaii is the state where your dollar will last the shortest, a new study found. It’s a common refrain that retirees should save at least $1 million for retirement, but how much does where they live affect their saving needs?” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): I just moved from one of the best (Texas) to one of worst (New Mexico). Oops. How Long Will $1 Million
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“’Granny pods’ become a solution for retirees with limited budgets,” by Katie Young, CNBC “The 67-year-old retiree was living alone in Wyoming, and had grown tired of cold winters. She wanted to be closer to her family in Oakland, California. Not ready to give up her independence entirely by sharing a roof with family — but also unable to purchase another property thanks in part to the Bay Area’s notoriously high cost of housing — Baldwin decided to look no further than the backyard. Her answer was to build a 400-square-foot ‘granny pod.’” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President,
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“The Language of Long-Term Care: Navigating the care maze can be overwhelming; understanding the lingo can help,” by Christine Benz, Morningstar “As I reflect on my parents’ final years, a period that included multiple hospital stays, trips to rehab, and the hiring of in-home caregivers, I realize that my siblings and I were often a step behind with our responses. We initially hired in-home caregivers to help for 10 to 20 hours a week when, in hindsight, we should have had them there every day. We made the difficult decision to move my dad to a long-term care facility with
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“The role of advisors in longevity planning,” by Kimberly Foss, Financial Planning “Similarly, boomers don’t really want stocks, bonds, mutual funds or insurance; they want the means to live their desired lifestyle when they are no longer actively employed. They want to solve the problems that come with longevity, and those problems, more and more, go beyond simply funding their retirement accounts. . . . In order to position themselves to adequately respond to the longevity needs of an aging clientele, advisors will increasingly be called upon to provide not just transaction-based assistance, but also to serve as facilitators of
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“7 Peeks Into Long-Term Care Insurance Issuers’ Thinking,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “Here are seven glimpses of the state of the U.S. LTCI market drawn from earnings reports, and insurers’ quarterly earnings conference calls with securities analysts.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Random insights. The last one in the final paragraph caught my eye: “Lu Zhiqiang, the chairman of China Oceanwide, said . . . that he wants to complete the Genworth acquisition as soon as possible . . . as we expand our long term care insurance capabilities and work together to
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“You can get quality elder care but be prepared to pay for it,” by Sarah O’Brien, CNBC “If you live in a state with high-quality care for older Americans, chances are the cost of it isn’t so great. Data in a new report by Caring.com shows that seven of the top 10 states for quality elderly care also rank in the bottom 20 for the cost of those services.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Of course, the flip side is that a lot of states have lower quality care with higher costs. Check
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“A centered approach to research on aging,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “LeadingAge Senior Vice President of Research Robyn Stone, DrPH, recently took some time to discuss with Senior Editor Lois A. Bowers the new partnership between LeadingAge and the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston to create the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, which she will co-direct with Marc Cohen, Ph.D., leader of long-term services and supports research at the Gerontology Institute.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): LTCI friend and highly regarded researcher Marc Cohen recently authored a
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“Could This Idea Help Fix America’s Shortage Of Home Care Workers?,” by Chris Farrell, Forbes “The demographics of a growing demand for elder care in America is raising alarms. The number of adults 65 and over requiring long-term care could rise by more than 70% over the next quarter century, estimates MIT Sloan School of Management professor Paul Osterman, author of the new book, Who Will Care for Us?: Long-Term Care and the Long-Term Workforce. But the supply of home care workers is likely to fall short of demand. Perhaps a novel program from the AARP Foundation and Capital Impact
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“ACA Diluted Funds for the Severely Disabled,” by Paul T. Spencer, Wall Street Journal letter to the editor “The ACA has expanded funding for Medicaid services, but it has also to an even greater degree expanded the pool of people eligible to dip their spoon in the pot. It used to be that Medicaid did a fair job of providing for the truly disabled and needy. Now it does a lousy job of serving more people, many of whom are not truly needy and could provide care for themselves. . . . Please join me in supporting the repeal of
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