Posts Tagged "LTSS"
December 16, 2021
Medicaid to Help Fill Gap in Seniors’ Care
Two previous studies on long-term care reported in this blog estimated how many of today’s 65-year-olds today will require care for minimal, moderate, or severe levels of need as they age and how many have the financial resources to cover each level of care that might be required.
In the third and final study in this series, the Center for Retirement Research matched the specific levels of need each retiree is projected to have in the future with their resources to determine how many of them will fall short.
Among all retirees, 22 percent are expected to have minimal needs for care and 9 percent will lack the family and financial resources to cover it – in other words, just under half of the people in this group will fall short. The shortfall among people with moderate needs will be larger: the comparable figures are 38 percent of all retirees will be at this level and 21 percent of retirees will fall short. Finally, 24 percent of retirees are expected to have severe care needs – for at least five years – and 16 percent will fall short.
But there is another critical source of support: Medicaid. The researchers find that the joint federal-state program dramatically reduces the share of retirees with insufficient resources to cover their care.
Not everyone qualifies for Medicaid, however. Older Americans can get the funding if they meet two conditions. First, they must have a serious health issue, such as dementia or a physical or medical condition that limits their activity. Second, the program covers nursing homes only for retirees with little in the way of financial resources, either because they had lower-paying jobs and didn’t save or because they exhausted most of the retirement savings they had scraped together.
When Medicaid is added to the picture, the program makes a significant dent. Among the 65-year-olds who will need moderate care, the share of all retirees who lack the resources to cover it drops from 21 percent to 14 percent when Medicaid funding is included. Medicaid also reduces the burden on boomers who will need high levels of care: the share lacking adequate resources drops from 16 percent to 11 percent.
The researchers didn’t include Medicaid in the resources available to the 9 percent of retirees who will need only minimal help with chores like cleaning or grocery shopping. The program typically doesn’t pay for these services, though there has been movement in a handful of states and at the federal level to loosen the restrictions around housekeeping. …Learn More
October 28, 2021
Boomers Will Struggle with Care in Old Age
The bulk of care for the nation’s elderly is informally provided by spouses, adult children, and other family members. But if family can’t fill the need, will retirees be able to hire an in-home caregiver or pay for a nursing home in the future?
Just one in five 65-year-olds has enough family and financial resources combined to provide the support they would require in the event they develop the most severe care needs as they age, according to new research by the Center for Retirement Research. At the other extreme, more than one in three will have insufficient resources to cover even a minimal amount of care.
The study builds on previous report showing that most retirees will eventually need some care, though only one in four is predicted to have severe needs. And one in five will not need any care. The new study used data from a national survey of older Americans to determine how many total hours of care are required for three different levels of need – minimal, moderate and severe.
For example, 924 hours of family or professional care per year are used by the typical person who gets minimal assistance, such as housekeeping or cooking for a few weeks or months. But people with severe needs receive nearly 2,300 hours of care per year – with half supplied by family members. This would add up to more than 11,000 hours over a five-year period, which is the length of time the researchers used to define severe care needs.
Next, the researchers calculated how many hours of care could be covered informally by family and how many hours of formal care the retirees could purchase with their income and any financial assets. If the total hours of care they can cover with their resources fall short of what is required for a given level of need, then retirees have insufficient resources to meet that need.
Unmarried women are in the toughest position, because they lack not only a spouse to take care of them in old age but also the financial advantages enjoyed by married couples, who tend to be wealthier than single people. Over half of unmarried women will not be able to cover even minimal care needs. In contrast, only a third of couples could not provide for any future care.
There are also big disparities by race: nearly half of older Black Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics do not have the family and financial resources to provide at least minimal care, compared with only a third of whites. …Learn More
About Squared Away
Learn more about our blog and its writer, Kimberly Blanton, a former Boston Globe reporter.
