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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMy mother spent the last few months of her life in a nursing\nhome. My first wife died in a nursing home. My wife’s mother spent a lot of\ntime in nursing homes. Today, I have elderly friends in nursing homes who I try\nto occasionally go and see. It’s the same old story. I continue to see a\nmultitude of lonely, forgotten people who have been warehoused in facilities\nuntil they breathe their last breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Placing my wife in a nursing home was one of the hardest\nthings I’ve ever done. She was in the final stages of multiple sclerosis and\nneeded 24 hour care which I couldn’t physically give. However, looking back\nemotionally and even physically I don’t think I would have been as drained if I\nhad just kept her at home and tried to have cared for her. Nursing Homes are\nexhausting. You think at the time it’s the only answer, but then you are there\nnumerous hours every day trying to make sure your loved one is not being\nneglected. In today’s nursing homes the chances are great they will be\nneglected because the average nursing home cannot keep enough staff to take care\nof everyone. One worker told me once she was in charge of taking care of sixty\n(60) persons every night. She said that oftentimes there would be people she\nnever saw on her shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nursing home care cost is astronomical. Just a bed, three\nmeals a day and an occasional bath will cost you around $7,500 a month. My\nmother-in-law needed rehabilitation. Three (3) years ago her cost was over\n$15,000 a month for four (4) months. My father-in-law shelled out $60,000 of\ntheir life savings for rehab. They had worked hard to save that money, but you\ncan’t take it with you. However, most people don’t intend to work all of their\nlives so that they can turn their savings over to a nursing home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nursing homes are not a relief emotionally or physically and\nfinancially they will break you. Most Americans end up paying for their nursing\nhome care via Medicaid. Going on Medicaid is no picnic as it means, in reality,\nyou no longer have any means to pay for your care. Twenty (20) years ago I was\nthe pastor of a church with a small salary and financially we didn’t have\nanything except a house payment. Going to the local county office for health\nand family services and applying for Medicaid for nursing home care for the\ncare of my invalid dying wife was tough. It was our last resort. We were glad\nit was available but it was emotionally tough. It’s the same office where you\ngo and apply for food stamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are some good nursing homes out there and many, many\nhardworking, caring nurses. There are some really bad ones out there too and\nthey are all extremely expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the time we hear about Americans being medically\ninsured. What about long term care insurance for aging Americans? Our nation is\ngetting older. The baby boomers are a large chunk of our population – 75\nmillion! Baby boomers are going to face bankruptcies and mega financial\nchallenges as is this nation with the long term care of our generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our politicians must come up with a long term care\nplan that does not require the financial ruin of millions of Americans. I know\nlong term care insurance is available if you are not sick and can afford it.\nHowever, somehow we have to add long term care insurance to Medicare. Yes, it\nwill cost us every month to pay for it just like we are paying for part B now.\nHowever, it would be for real medical care in the nursing home with real\nrehabilitation if it is needed; and not just for a bed and three meals a day\nand an occasional bath. Plus it would spare the elders in this nation from\nhaving to file bankruptcy and go into poverty to have a shelter over their\nheads the last few months or even years of their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dr. Glenn Mollette About 1.5 million American seniors now live in nursing homes. Seventy percent (70%) of them rely on Medicaid to pay the bill, which means they are low-income… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}