“Planning For Your
Long-Term Care”
by
Sue Hartenbaum M.A.

I believe that as educated consumers, when people see the need to protect themselves against the possible financial devastation of extended long-term care expenses, they will recognize the benefits of quality long-term care insurance. I hope this column will help educate people. Feel free to ask questions. So....let's begin...

Have you thought about whether or not you will have enough money to take care of your potential long-term care needs? Since Medicare only pay a pittance for long-term care, the questions really are:

1.	How much money is enough to ensure you have adequate care?

2.	Where will you get the care?

It is realistic to expect that you will need to spend between $4,000 and $8,000 a month on long-term care today. Those expenses could go on for years. And that's the good news! The bad news is, that due to health care influation, the cost of care is doubling approximately every 12 years. Furthermore, the cost of care at home is often higher than the cost in a nursing home. Yet, few of us wish to move into a nursing home. If we rely on Medicaid (the federal medical supplement), our choices will be limited to a nursing home because adequate home care will not be an option.

This is just an introduction to this important but complicated avenue. I will be using future columns to break down this complicated subject into understandable bites.

Sue can be reached at (310) 586-9700 or at:

Sue Hartenbaum, M.A.
The Center for Healthy Aging
2125 Arizona Ave.
Santa Monica, CA 90404.

Email your questions/comments to sue@the-ddic.com