What's the Fuss About? My Parents Retired Great/ Medicare and the Rest

[KoKo]

One of my parents died in a Great Nursing Home...folks loved her..she got great care...and my other parent is on about 16 Meds since he went into his Nursing Care Home..after living alone until he was 96 and broke his hip...and now they say he has Alzheimers..

But both my parents and in-laws were savy enough to pay for "Medicare Part -B" which took care of "Major Medical/Nursing Homes and all the rest."

I worry though that their CHILDREN ...WON'T have THOSE CHOICES...

I think the Repugs want to "Kill us OFF!" (the Boomers and "cusp Boomers.")

Am I wrong? That times might change and folks might see their "own Parents" as LIABILITIES for their FUTURE????

Will they?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. We are nursing home shopping for my mom now

They cost $60,000 a YEAR!!

Since my mom is not poor, she has to pay out of pocket.

I don't find that to be great care. Not in the least.

[Warpy]

5. I'll be joining you when my pneumonia starts to resolve

My dad's fairly well fixed, and I'm hoping to find him an assisted living facility. He's not sick enough for a nursing home, but he can't live on his own any more, it's not safe.

Assisted living should run nearly as much as full nursing home care does, though.

And no, like life insurance, pensions, and very probably social security and medicare, it won't be there when I need it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. My mom was in assisted living for almost a year

just recently and it was between $3000 and $3500 a month. That is around $110 a day. A nursing home we looked at last week is $165 a day, or nearly $5000 a month.

[bleedingheart]

10. my brother in law's mother was in an Alzheimer's unit...$6000/month

and get this...when she and her husband signed on (before the disease hit)...they were promised that with their big $50,000 deposit and monthly payments...they would never be kicked out. When they both got sicker very fast and after he died...the "retirement home of their dreams" knew that the money would run out soon...so they were going to transfer her to the County home for indigent patients...imagine the shock of that to the family....

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The place we are looking at says they will keep her even if her money runs

out then they will bill Medicare.

Why can't they just bill Medicare now?

[Yupster]

13. My wife and I bought

long-term care insurance this past year.

It's pretty darn cheap if you by it before age 50. In today's world to me it's a necessity.

[bluerum]

2. In the next few years boomers will be framed as societies

burden. Having spawned a liberal revolution starting in the 50's they have been the scourge of right thinking repukians for many years. We are now at their mercy - or lack there-of.

[bleedingheart]

3. actually I am seeing the greedy boomers who want their parents to die

before the potential inheritance is wiped out in the nursing home...

As awful as it sounds, I know a a few 48-55 year olds who were counting on a lot of extra dough when the parents kicked...but the parents are now having to enter nursing homes and their kids who spent their cash on homes and stuff aren't going to get anything. In fact I know of one couple who got their parents to help pay for a McMansion...but the parents had to be put in a home within two years due Alzheimers...now the state wants a chunk of that McMansion since the monies the parents gave towards the construction are considered fair game under our state medicaid system.

[Warpy]

6. Face it, older boomers had the first 25 years of their pension

contributions stolen whenever they changed jobs, bore the brunt of the oil shocks, double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and then double digit interest rates in what should have been prime earning years. Looking at what their folks were able to put aside while the New Deal protections were in place is sensible. It's why so many are taking on the burden of caring for elderly parents themselves and being crushed by that burden in a two earner family.

Older boomers have nothing left. We've been kept artificially poor all our lives and robbed at every turn. Many of us are now uninsurable because of the health conditions that come with age, meaning we're at risk for medical debt.

You see wanting to avoid having a parent's fortune eaten up by nursing home costs as callous and greedy. Call it survival because you may be next in line.

[bleedingheart]

9. I don't expect to inherit anything and am planning accordingly

I grew up in a single parent home (my mom was a widow), so I am doing my best to put money aside in the bank and have my home paid for....but I know that even with that I may still end up working til I die.

However...when a couple buys a 4000 sq ft home and finishes the basement for the grandparents whose money is paying for the majority of the home...I call that a bit over the top....

Sadly this is all too personal for me because I have siblings who are really pissed that my mother isn't giving them her last dime for them to spend...it is like watching my own family version of King Lear. My mother is lucky to have a home, some income and her meager savings....but my siblings feel that their needs are greater...when in reality they are lucky that she is not a burden to them... meanwhile my siblings (who are less than 50 years of age) have made very good money and at times have put their personal enjoyment ahead of common sense...now there are some problems in their lives and they are looking at my mother's nest egg as their salvation...it is sick.

My husband and I have spent money helping my mom out with her house and she is no boomer...she is a Depression era baby...born in '32...

[KoKo]

12. Back to Nixons "Wage Price Freezes" and mortgage rates of 15% with

forced 20% down...:-( Yeah...Boomers had it real good. But it depends on which end of that huge generation one was born in.

[Cleita]

4. You are right.

They don't want you guys to have a good retirement. With Medicare part A and B and a Medigap policy, you could pretty much get the medical care you needed. It's still sort of that way, but just in a year they have thrown this awful prescription drug program at us and raised premiums all around.

Oh, the Social Security cost of living raise doesn't cover it. Also, the prescription drug coverage that we once had through other programs has been compromised and drugs out-of-pocket cost more than ever.

[brokensymmetry]

8. Yes, they'll kill us off.

I'm a boomer. Some time - say, in my late 70's, if I'm lucky - a nurse will come into my room at the nursing home with a pill or an injection. I'll be assured it will make me feel better. A few minutes later, I'll be dead. All quite legally, of course. All without my knowledge or consent.

Of course, that assumes that I'll even get a room at the nursing home...that may be overly optimistic.

The rest of you will face the same event, unless you have the means to pay for such care privately.

I wonder if the nurse will go to church and sing religious songs after terminating me?

[Cleita]

14. They are trying to.

I was able to cope with my late husband's illness, because we had Medicare Part A and B for him and tightened our belts for a Medigap policy that in the long run kept us from becoming homeless. I have tried to do the same for myself, but I don't know if it will keep me as secure as it did for him when he was alive.

Also, my husband had me as his caregiver. I got nothing for it, not even health care for myself. I could have stayed at work and gotten health care, but it wouldn't have helped me take care of him. It was really a catch-22.