Best Posts in Thread: Assisted Living

The only plan at this point is hoping my boy could get into the US Air Force Academy, or maybe just Silliman College here.

 

I want to sound the alarm. US insurance company stats say 80% of age 65+ will need eventually need assisted living. I am very fortunate to have it and could not get by without help. Something profound to think about.

 

There's several things in this thread that I'd like to comment on, and it may end up being a rant.
First off, I will try to stay away from politically charged comment, but most (probably all) developed nations have avoided to have a moral discussion about the ethics of insuring medical treatment. This has lead to the cost of medical care rising much faster than national income ever since the early 1970's. Obviously, the problem with an expense that grows faster than your income is that in the long run it gets totally unaffordable.
The ethical dilemma that's not being discussed is when is a "revolutionary new treatment" for a serious illness simply too expensive to apply and the other would be along the lines of "do we really want to give a 96 year old a new hip after a fall". Not having that discussion leads to medical care absorbing an ever bigger share of our income.
If we want to keep somewhat affordable health care society can't avoid these discussions much longer. We can't leave these decisions to doctors, it is not fair to them and they will struggle with the "too expensive" thing because of their oath.
Basically my conclusion is that the only way out is healthcare "not for profit" combined with a law that forces a compulsory insurance system that's based on shared risks across generations, rather than based on age and pre-existing conditions.
If you fund healthcare from general taxes, people will never agree to have this ethical discussion because they have no clue how much of their taxes is spent on healthcare, so paying insurance premiums is the way to go.

As for assisted living, well there used to be old age care homes where there were different levels of assistance, from a "lean to bungalow with an alarm button" to having a apartment in the building with meal delivery and cleaning services, to having a bedroom and assistance to help you get in and out of bed, get dressed etc.
Those have all been demolished by now, but I have my doubts whether the modern version of that (the assisted living), with caregivers running around to people's home to assist them for 10 minutes and moving on to the next address is really all that much more efficient (cheaper). It sure as hell is demoralizing for the person needing the assistance, laying in their bed waiting for the caregiver to arrive and not get held up for some reason and arrive late or not at all.
We are lucky Pat, to live here and have affordable help and/or a loving asawa to make sure we get that help and don't wither away without much social contact.
I couldn't get my compression socks on without help and I'm happy my wife helps me with that. I don't even want to think about how I would organise that while living on my own in Europe.