In fact, a majority of people cannot and do not. One in three people who turn 65 end up in a nursing home at some point. Among the people living in one today, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 62 percent cannot pay the bill on their own.
And when that happens, Medicaid pays. The very Medicaid program that stands to have hundreds of billions of dollars less to spend if anything like the health care bills on the table in Washington come to pass.
All too many of the currently comfortable are utterly unconscious of this fact, for reasons that are perfectly understandable. We assume, incorrectly, that Medicaid is only for the younger poor or those with disabilities and that Medicare will pay for most nursing home care. Emotionally, we just cannot handle the prospect of our breaking down in old age. So we put our heads in the sand.
Reality forces our hand, however, when the first nursing home bills arrive. The average annual cost is $82,128 for a semiprivate room, according to Genworth, which sells insurance that can help pay those bills. Most people can’t pay that amount and certainly not for long, especially after 10 or 20 years of retirement spending. If a spouse (a male spouse, more often than not in heterosexual couples) has already needed years of expensive care, the other partner is all the more vulnerable.
Ask around. Someone you know has quietly faced these facts and probably turned to Medicaid. Chances are, you, a family member or a close friend will someday, too.
