Paying for nursing home care?

What do most people do? How do they pay for it? It appears long term health-care is expensive.

Had two in laws go through a bunch of money before the state took over. Never tell the nursing home you are responsible for some ones debt except your own.

My FIL did not own one single thing but an automobile when he had to go...The state and county chipped in and paid his assisted living bills..To qualify for the aid he got he had to draw no more than $1240 dollars per month in SS. He was about $20 dollars under that amount. My Wife let a lawyer handle everything for her father, it was money well spent..

From what I can tell after going through this with my MIL, it is either you go on Medicaid if your income and assets are low enough, or have a Long Term Care insurance policy, or someone has to pay it out of their pocket.

And yes, it is very expensive, averaging 4-5K per month, if I am not mistaken.

If the person in need is a veteran, or the wife of a veteran, be sure to check with the VA. It's a PIA, with a long drawn out approval process, but my step-dad is receiving in-home assistance that covers everything.

He balked at first, didn't want a "handout" as he put it, but I quickly told him that he had earned it many years ago in Korea.

You best not have any

substantial assets of any kind over the house you live in and a car or that will preclude you from getting much in the way of assistance. For sure that follows for cash in the bank. They cannot take your home while you are alive but they can choose to tap that when both of you are gone.

My father helped pay for 4 years of his girl friend to be in a nursing facility. She had a pension - some social security and some cash - all went to the facility. In order for her to remain there dad had to start helping pay even though they were never married. Dad set up a Miller Trust to make sure she could remain there until her death.

That facility was 11K per MONTH (AG Rhodes on Clifton Road). The average around here in Atlanta is around 8-9K per month. Pretty tough to be able to afford that even with LTC insurance (which is usually 1-2 years unless you pay through the nose before you need it). Someone has to pay those incredible folks that took such good care of her so I understand the costs. Not sure I could do that for a living but thank god there are those that do. Her costs were just over 1/2 million dollars for the time she was there. Not many can cover that even with insurance.

Nursing Home insurance is fairly reasonable if you get it when you are younger. The older you get the more expensive it is. I bout one when I was 55. The premium stays the same on the policy I have. But each year I don't use it the monthly benefit increases.

Its sad a person can work all there lives and pay taxes and in the end government takes it all.....but don't hit a lick at a snake your whole life....its free off the backs of the ones that did work. Basically impossible to afford

Bigtimber said:

Its sad a person can work all there lives and pay taxes and in the end government takes it all.....but don't hit a lick at a snake your whole life....its free off the backs of the ones that did work. Basically impossible to afford

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You got that right.