Texans Face High Long Term Care Costs

According to the findings of a group of health care academics in Texas, this state has the highest percentage of uninsured individuals in spite of the fact that high Texas long term care costs are looming and expected to multiply four times 19 years from now.

Based on the data of the Texas Department of Insurance, only about 10,443 partnership long term care insurance (LTCI) policies were sold last year. Ironically, the population of Texas’s elderly residents who are 85 and older are expected to double in 2030 and all of them are going to need care.

How to provide care to a big number of uninsured senior citizens remains a mystery to the government of Texas.

It was only three years ago that Texas joined the partnership LTCI program so that individuals with a great number of assets to protect can qualify for Medicaid without complying with this health insurance program’s spend-down rule should they require ongoing care from Medicaid in the future.

Most of the new buyers of LTCI policies in Texas come from the upper and middle class of society and this explains why most of the new policies that were sold came with asset protection.

Texans in lucrative jobs and businesses have every reason to fear the cost of care in their state. First of all, the state’s median daily rate for a private nursing home room is $162 or $60,225 per year. Now if you are living in an area teeming with more expensive nursing homes such as Austin, you are obligated to fork out as much as $73,000, or even more, annually.

According to Texas nursing homes personnel the average length of stay of an elderly in a nursing home is three years so if you have less than $100,000 in savings how can you possibly afford it?

By purchasing an LTCI policy, it would be possible to defer your Social Security income and retirement money. No one said you should purchase a policy with all the ideal components because that will require a lot of money for the annual premium. Even just partial coverage can already alleviate the cost of care.

Texas Long Term Care Costs

Long term care discussions always refer to nursing home costs and probably because the cost of receiving a month’s care in this institutional LTC facility is already equivalent to a home health aide’s salary for seven months.

Decades ago, people would purchase LTCI policies in order to be able to acquire nursing home services. Nowadays, they purchase such product so that they can stay longer at home and avoid the possibility of entering a nursing home.

As a matter of fact, the report of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance revealed that majority of last year’s LTCI claims were used for in-home care. Aside from paying the insured individual’s caregivers or nurses, a policy also enables the insured to modify his home and make it more comfortable and conducive to his condition.

Texas long term care costs may be too high to bear but if you’re armed with an LTCI policy that is tailored to your needs you’ll realize that retirement is the best phase of life.