When we become older, often times our medical expenses increase dramatically. It’s a natural part of life, as you get older your health slowly declines over a long period of time. It’s something that we have come to accept as a society because modern science and medicine have only advanced so far. Medical researchers have made a lot of progress, but all of that research is expensive, and users of those products have to carry those costs. When people reach their late 70’s and early 80’s often times, they cannot longer care for themselves and take their medications properly so they unfortunately have to live in a nursing home, and that can be rather expensive.

Kiplinger’s Personal Finance recently did a study and found that the average annual cost of living in a nursing home was a total sum of $74,095! They also reported that the cost to live in an assisted living facility was $34,860. In many parts of America, you could buy a house with that much money in just a couple of years. This amount may come as a shock, but when you consider the costs of medication, supervision, nurses, entertainment, specialized food preparation, expensive medical and monitoring equipment, it can add up rather quickly.

 

There are around 2 million nursing home beds in North America, and there are around 40 million people over the age of 65 in America, and just 4 million older than the age of 85. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many people will end up in a nursing home, but an estimate from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance said that about 43% of people who turned 65 in the year 1990 will end up in a nursing home at some point in their life. The report also showed that 1 in 4 will spend a year in an nursing home, and 1 in 11 will spend more than five years in a nursing home!

 

When you grow older and find your self in a nursing home, statistically you won’t have a whole lot of money left. If you are in a nursing home, all of your money could be spent rather quickly, leaving your children nothing to inherit. This isn’t exactly an ideal situation, so here’s what you can do. On your 60th birthday, pickup some good long term care insurance. You are essentially insuring your self against nursing home expenses and assisted living expenses. With such a high rate of people going into assisted living and nursing homes, it’s definitely worthwhile to get it. Definitely do some shopping around to get the best price.

• Is Long Term Care Insurance a Wise Purchase For You?
• Supplemental Health Insurance-More Than Just A Cute Duck
• Renter’s Insurance is a Must Have
• What Does Homeowner’s Insurance Actually Cover?
• How to Reduce the Cost of Prescription Drugs During Retirement

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.