The following 3 articles hit the news Thursday and Friday of this week. The message here: it’s unrealistic to expect the government to be able to pay for long-term care. Long-term care insurance needs to be a core part of your financial planning. 

The total federal deficit is expected to exceed $14 trillion next year – about $47,000 for every US resident.

Medicaid rolls swell by 3.3 million nationwide By Catherine Candisky, Columbus Dispatch. Feb 18, 2010, Between June 2008 and June 2009, Medicaid enrollment rose by 7.5 percent and all 50 states saw increases, according to an analysis released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Medicaid currently pays for approximately 50% of long-term care in the US.  

States consider Medicaid cuts as use grows By Kevin Sack and Robert Pear, New York Times. Feb 19, 2010 States are already unable to make budgetary ends meet with the influx of Medicaid recipients resulting from the country’s economic woes, yet health care reform could add more than 15 million more people to the rolls. Many states are considering cutting vision and dental care which are considered optional benefits, and some other states are discussing new taxes on tobacco or levies on doctors and hospitals.

Deficit panel: Budget cuts will hurt By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press, February 19, 2010. In a poisonous legislative atmosphere, almost no one is willing to go on the record with budget solutions like raising the Social Security retirement age, ordering broad-based tax increases, or increasing co-pays and deductibles for Medicare. On Thursday, President Obama created the new National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, charged with coming up with a plan by December 1, 2010 that will reduce the government’s annual deficits to 3 percent of the national economy by 2015.