Prepare for Generation Wars
Written by admin on March 10th, 2010Baby Boomers who are used to having everything they want may be at economic “war” with their children.
Motley is No Fool
Written by admin on March 6th, 2010Yesterday’s easy to read Motley Fool column gives accurate info about the looming long-term care crisis.
Boomer Insight: I Haven’t Been Imagining Things!
Written by admin on March 1st, 2010According to Wikipedia, Boomers like to avoid long-term care planning and discussion. Perhaps I have not been imagining things!
New Report Proves Need for LTCi
Written by admin on February 26th, 2010Comrehensive new study on caregiving proves the need for long-term care insurance.
Food for Thought
Written by admin on February 24th, 2010The government can’t and won’t pay for long-term care. Care costs can be catastrophic.
Unsustainable
Written by admin on February 20th, 2010Swelling deficits and soaring need prove that the government can’t and won’t pay for long-term care.
Own Your Future
Written by admin on February 12th, 2010On February 1, 2010, 1.3 million letters were sent to Texas between 40 and 60 years old announcing the new Own Your Future Texas Campaign and urging Texans to take personal responsibility.
The mailing clearly advocates long-term care planning and states long-term care coverage should be a core part of your financial plan. Recipients are invited to call in, mail in, or online order a free long-term care planning kit.
The Own Your Future Texas campaign encourages the public to visit www.OwnYourFutureTexas.org. This site has lots of eye appeal, is easy to navigate, and has comprehensive information about what care costs and how long-term care insurance works. It even has calculators you can use to help you predict your likelihood of needing care, and how much your care may cost.
The Own Your Future Texas Campaign was created by the Texas Legislature. It is a collaborative effort between private long-term care insurance providers, their authorized agents, and state government agencies, including the Texas Department of Insurance, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Department of Aging.
Wonderful New LTC Site
Written by admin on February 10th, 2010www.OwnYourFutureTexas.org is a new site with fabulous info on LTC planning. It is fun to look at and easy to navigate.
It has comprehensive info about LTC costs. It explains how LTC works. It even has calculators you can use to help you predict your likelihood of needing care, and how much it will cost.
Created by the Texas Legislature, www.OwnYourFutureTexas.org is a collaborative effort between private long-term care insurance providers, their authorized agents, and state government agencies, including the Texas Department of Insurance, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services.
If you live in TX and are between 45 and 60 years of age, you should have gotten a letter last week, introducing you to www.OwnYourFutureTexas.org . OwnYourFutureTexas’s tagline is “It’s your future. Own it. Stay in control of your future by planning wisely today.”
New, Very Scary Report Just Published
Written by admin on February 4th, 2010A very scary report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was published today in the journal Health Affairs.
According to this report, even if healthcare reform falls by the wayside, federal and state programs will pay for more than half the cost of healthcare in the US by 2012.
Health care spending jumped to $2.5 trillion, or 17.3 percent of the economy in 2009, the report states. The annual increase in share of gross domestic product, from 16.2 percent in 2008, was the biggest since record keeping began in 1960.
President Obama’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, told the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday that health care costs will fuel a growing budget deficit and “we cannot close the long-term fiscal shortfall” without bringing them under control.
All health care spending will probably grow at an average annual rate of 6.1 percent from 2009 through 2019, which is 1.7 percentage points faster than the projected growth in the economy, as measured in gross domestic product, economists said.
Even as the economy shrank because of the downturn, health care spending grew by 5.7 percent from 2008. Government health care spending grew nearly three times faster than private spending.
Driving much of the cost surge was Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people. It grew by nearly 10 percent last year.
Many long-term care insurance specialists believe that lots of the increase in Medicaid spending is due to the relative ease with which ordinary middle-class people can artificially impoverish themselves down to Medicaid eligible income thresholds. Medicaid currently pays for approximately 50% of long-term care costs in the US.
This is really scary stuff! If you’re over 55 and don’t own long-term care insurance, you have your head buried in the sand, which won’t help you much if you ever need care.
Sources: Associated Press and Bloomberg News
Honey Polices the Media
Written by admin on January 24th, 2010Here are comments just sent to Suze Orman and Oprah Magazine:
Dear Suze:
I am your admirer. You do the world tremendous good by recommending purchase of long-term care insurance (LTCi). The comments on LTCi in your February 2010 Oprah Magazine column are all sound except for your advice to purchase it at age 59 or 60.
Advising LTCi purchase at age 59 or 60 is at odds with CMS http://www.longtermcare.gov/LTC/Main_Site/Planning_LTC/Campaign/Kit/audio/track03.mp3, Terry Savage (page 232 of her book “The Savage Truth”), and every LTC insurance expert I know.
I hope you will examine the compelling reasons why experts recommend completion of LTCi purchase by age 55 and sooner, and update your advice accordingly.
Honey Leveen
