When you are looking ahead toward your retirement years, you may focus on the initial stage, when all the fruits of your labor can be harvested. You can enjoy leisure activities, spend time with family members and friends, and cross things off your bucket list.
This stage of your life can certainly be very special, but it is also important to consider the twilight years that will follow.
The Next Plateau
As time goes on and the years pass, you may start to feel a lot less energetic than you did when you were in your 60s. At this point, you may start to require help with your activities of daily living to some degree or another. People close to you can chip in here and there, and you may be able to get by with just a little bit of help.
Of course, the clock does not stand still for anyone, and your condition is invariably going to start to erode at some point in time. According to the Social Security Administration, the life expectancy for someone that is 67 is 85 to 87 years. When you are looking at life as an octogenarian, the need for nursing home care can eventually become quite apparent.
Medicare Won’t Help
If you are like the vast majority of seniors, you will have Medicare coverage during your senior years, and it will provide a solid underpinning from a health insurance perspective. This being stated, you should be prepared for out-of-pocket expenses like deductibles, co-payments, and premiums.
In addition to these expenses that are not going to be devastating to most people, you have to brace yourself for potential nursing home costs. That’s right, Medicare will not pay for long-term care.
Nursing Home Costs Are High and Rising
Genworth Financial puts in a great deal of effort to compile research about long-term care costs nationally, and they also drill down to individual states and larger cities within the states.
Since we are now reaching the end of the year, they have released their statistics for 2019.
According to their research, the median annual charge for a private room in a nursing home in the Burlington, Vermont area has been $148,920 this year. For a semi-private room, the savings were minimal comparatively speaking at $128,845.
These are some big numbers right now, and your family could face multiple rounds of nursing home costs if you and your spouse both require this type of care eventually.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, if you are looking to enter a nursing home in 15 or 20 years, the expenses may be far higher. For a private room, Genworth is reporting a 7.94% increase in 2019 over 2018 costs. This is consistent with an upward trend that we have been seeing over recent years.
Explore Our Elder Law Reports
It is possible to qualify for Medicaid to pay for nursing home bills if you take the right steps at the right times. This program will pay nursing home bills, but you have to position assets out of your own name to gain eligibility, because it is intended for people with significant financial need.
We have prepared a number of special reports that cover Medicaid planning for nursing home asset protection, the severe threat that is presented by Alzheimer’s disease, and other important elder law matters.
You can access any or all them free of charge, and we urge you to take advantage of this opportunity to obtain some very important knowledge. Simply click the following link to obtain access: Free Elder Law Reports.
Schedule a Consultation Today!
If you would like to discuss all of this extremely important information with a knowledgeable member of our firm, we would be more than glad to provide you with a one-on-one estate planning and elder law consultation. To schedule an appointment, send us a message through our contact page or call us at 802-879-7133.
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