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Americans overestimate Medicare coverage
In late 2006, the AARP completed a survey in which it was reported that nearly 60% of older Americans (age 45 and older) underestimate the cost of long-term care, overestimate the long-term care costs that Medicare and Medicaid will pay and misunderstood the specifics and scope of the services they will receive as part of a public program. The AARP results are troubling to many community and insurance industry leaders. If people mistakenly believe that public programs will step in and cover long-term care, they won’t make arrangements for private care–and they may end up with no long-term care at all. In a recent blog post, Rep Dan L. Burton, R-Indiana, called the AARP report findings “shocking,” and he encouraged future legislative change to help educate the public about long-term care policies and coverage options. “With only 10% of seniors currently covered under private long-term care insurance policices to help cover long-term costs, the average cost of a private room in a nursing home running about $75,000 a year, and our nation’s baby boom generation beginning to retire, we are literally facing a huge health care train wreck,” Burton warns. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Humana Services, the number of recipients age 65 or older in need of long-term care may increase to 12 million by the year 2020.
One Response to “Americans overestimate Medicare coverage”Leave a Reply |
14. March 2008 at 22:53
As someone who works in the long term care insurance industry, I am biased, but I have to agree that the AARP is finding out how shockingly ignorant the average American is about the costs and the payment forms for long term care.
The problem is, costs are growing as fast or faster than many people’s retirement accounts. They’ve worked their entire lives to build a nest egg to pass on to children or grandchildren and in the next 20 years, many of them, the majority in fact, will have to decimate all of their hard work by going in to long term care facilities which run up costs as high as $300 per day quickly.