NYT Article explains how long term care costs affect the middle class
None of us is fully prepared for this,” said Mr. Alberico, 58, whorecently retired as associate comptroller at Columbia University. “Thecost is unbelievable. And who can figure out the rules and regulations?It’s tough being old and it’s tough being our generation.”
Medicaid,the government health insurance for the poor, can help pay forlong-term care in many situations, but for tens of thousands of peoplelike the Albericos, it takes a visit to a lawyer’s office to figure outhow to qualify. There, the Depression-era elderly and their baby boomchildren are guided through a tangle of emotions and a thicket ofever-changing regulations – 40 years of wrangling in Congress andhand-wringing by middle-class Americans.
On his first visit,Mr. Alberico laid out the problem for Mr. Russo. His parents, Adam andPrudence, had Social Security income but no pension. They had $40,000in savings and $150,000 in real estate equity. Long-term care wouldcost $160,000 a year and exhaust their savings in 15 months. “I had noidea what to do,” Mr. Alberico said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley and other self-avowed Medicaid “reformers” have characterized persons such as the Albericos as schemers in engaging in “legal shenanigans” who should be paying their own long term care costs.