Funds the Current Generation Needs to Plan for Long-Term Care

Funds the Current Generation Needs to Plan for Long-Term Care Because of Changing Demographics and Future Lack of Government

At the same time as if the present need of planning for long-term care were not a huge adequate burden on the immediate or extended family, the letdown to chart, for the present generation of baby boomers, may well be even extra upsetting on spouse or family in the upcoming. At this point a catalog of factors that will make long-term care in the prospect an even extra critical load than it is today.

1. We are living longer. The population section of the "primitive", older than age 85, is the fastest-growing age group in the country. The older the person, the additional probable the call for long-term care and the more likely a call for care which lasts not just months but years. Over 50% of the age group over 85 is receiving long-term care.

2. The older the person the extra probable the risk of inception of dementia. The Alzheimer's Association estimates concerning 46% of people more than the age of 85 have dementia or Alzheimer's

3. The figure of overweight and obese people in the United States is rising noticeably. Obesity is a main donor to disability and poor health in the elderly. Estimates are that the effect of obesity will augment nursing home enrollments by an extra 15% to 20% by the year 2020.

4. The ranks of the elderly are rising larger. The population of elderly over 65 will twice over from about 37 million people today to about 77 million people in 2035, 30 years from now. Based on current estimates of the rate of long term care this means that in 30 years about 17 million elderly Americans will be in receipt of long term care.

5. It is predictable that 6 out of 10 people will need long term care for a moment during their lifetime.

6. With a large and rising figure of solitary person households there is no wife and oftentimes no children to provide care. About 40% of the population is single.

7. The birthrate is going down, families are getting smaller. The mixture of less children, the rising figure of single person households and a rising number of elderly will ultimately create a circumstances where there are more people needing care than there are available family caregivers.

8. Out of in the region of 116 million women in this country who might be working in the workforce about 60% or 69 million are employed. With women being the traditional caregivers, this means only about 40% of traditional caregivers are at home and able to provide long term care for loved ones without having to juggle a work schedule as well.

9. Children are moving far away or the elderly are relocating after retirement and this makes it difficult or impossible to provide the resulting long-distance caregiving.

10. The number of elderly as a percent of the population is growing larger putting a burden on the tax base and availability of money for government programs and the availability of younger caregivers. Over the next 50 years the elderly will grow from about 12% of the population to over 20% of the population.

11. Medical science is preventing early sudden deaths which often results in a prolonged life with impaired health and a higher potential need for long-term care.

12. Government programs are already stretched thin for long-term care services and will experience even greater stress on available funds in the future.

13. The government does not seem inclined to provide a national long-term care insurance plan

14. There is a worldwide trend, in all major industrial countries, to not deal with the problem of long-term care and very few countries, including the United States , have taken the initiative to adequately address the problem.

15. Most healthy people in their 50s and early 60s prefer to ignore this future problem and their lack of planning will further burden public programs in the future. (Source for statistics: statistical abstract of the United States, 2005)

The failure of the current pre-retirement generation to plan for long-term care will have an even greater future negative impact on our culture and our families than the lack of planning does today.

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