Long-Term Care Insurance Reform

“I wannabe on the cover of Forbes magazine

Smilingnext to Oprah and the Queen”

‘Billionaire’by Travie McCoy

WhenForbes Magazine turns its capitalist focused eye on Long Term Care reform it isworth noting.

Make Long-Term Care Insurance Part Of Health Care

“Why notmake insurance for long-term care services and supports part of health carecoverage?
It is aradical idea that turns the current model—which often treats long-term careinsurance as an element of retirement planning—entirely on its head…”

“We have to try something new” concludes the article.

It’s been thousands of years of mythology plus thousands of yearsof knowledge since ol’ Oedipus solved the Riddle of the Sphinx, ‘What walks onfour legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night?’ Yet howmany of us deny daily our own aging and eventual need for care.

Only a third of all adults say they have even talked with family ora friend about providing care to them in the future or had purchased disabilityincome insurance or looked into independent or assisted living arrangements orpurchased long-term care insurance.

Only 4 in 10 adults have set aside funds to cover additionalexpenses or signed a living will or healthcare power of attorney.

How many can even afford such options?

As a result … family caregivers provide about 80 percent of alllong-term care services in the U.S; an estimated 120 million adult Americans(57 percent) are either providing unpaid care to an adult family member orfriend or have provided this care in the past.

When the baby boomer generation starts walking on three legs, howlong before this house of cards comes crashing down?

Yes! We need to try something new!

91% of caregivers use Facebook

“91% of caregivers are using Facebook another 29% are using blogging sites …”

OMG I’m a tribal elder! While Facebook celebratesits 8^th birthday next month, I’ve been a spouse caregiver longerthan there has been Facebook or even Google, longer than smart phones, matterof fact - longer than either cell phones or home PCs. Telephones had cords andneighbors would leave hand written notes in the door, “going to grocery storethis afternoon, call if you need something.”

“… This provides a unique opportunity for marketers trying to sell healthcare products and services generally targeted tocaregivers or for those trying to build goodwill from a Pharma corporatestandpoint.” 

A century and a half ago Edgar Alan Poe asked,“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?” – Is today all that wesee or seem but an opportunity to sell?

That’s a helluva a lot of people reaching outinto cyberspace to try and find others like themselves, or trying to juggle theshrinking time for research or simply staying in touch as caregiving isolates.

Shouldn’t such phenomenal usage statistics be aunique opportunity for sharing and caring rather than marketing? Or am I simplynaïve?

Through 22 years of spouse caregiving andjuggling basically single parenting I’ve marveled in awe of the technologicaland scientific advancements of those two decades.

Yet also wondered why there are still so manycaregivers? Why does Patti still have MS? Whatever happened to dreaming ofthings that never were, and asking why not? What if … we focused instead on ‘reducing’the need for and cost of Big Pharma, health care products and services?

Am I the only one who finds it more thanstrange that the last time a disease (Polio) was defeated was before thecomputer age?

In a society where each day more people walkaround staring into smart phones and walk right into Patti’s wheelchair, I amleft wondering about the odds of hope for all that we see or seem to ever beall it could be. 

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer 

videos: www.youtube.com/daddyleer