National Long Term Care Awareness Month brings to the forefront the necessity of being fully covered. It is no secret that the cost of care in the United States is at an all–time high. This leaves the citizens are struggling for ways to fund the care that they need. Just last week, we featured Long Term Care Planning for Singles, the first part of our series which we aim to help alleviating some of the confusion and stress that of long term care planning. We strive to provide the push that people need to become more proactive in securing and safeguarding their future.
For the second part of our series, we would be focusing on long term care planning for couples. Planning alone may be nerve-racking and challenging, but the decisions of single individuals primarily affect their own selves. Couples, however, have to think for two individuals with intertwined futures.
The State of Long Term Care
Everybody wants to be covered from long term care expenses, but not every person knows how. People delay their plans just to see how things will go in the market. We all want to make sure that the plan that we decide on is the most secured and it is the most comprehensive. Because of this, we end up waiting a bit longer — becoming spectators and nothing more — that we fail to realize that time may be running out.
Long term care coverage is a product that takes time into great consideration. Your health and your age when you choose to apply can decide whether your application will be approved or not. After all, every person is one diagnosis away from saying goodbye to a good policy. Moreover, the stakes get higher with each year you continue to age and push deciding on a policy back.
Long Term Care Planning for Couples, Married or Not
Couples work together to establish a great future with each other, old age and sickness included. With the well-being two persons to take into consideration, the chances of long term care needs—and the expenses that go along with it—also double. One individual staying at a nursing home for a year would need to prepare an average of $82,125. Couples will need to save double of that amount if they wish to pay out-of-pocket. You also need to take into consideration how women need care longer (3.7 years) than men (2.2 years).
These costs can cause a devastating blow to any couple’s nest egg, and this is why many opt for Share Care. A policy specifically catered to couples, married or not, Shared Care provides partners a more practical approach to long term care.
Shared Care Policies Save Money
The price tag of care services in the United States is not something you can take lightly. It costs a great deal of money, and this is why couples turn to Shared Care.
This type of policy enables a couple to share a set of benefits. Through it, couples can take out separate care coverage where one can become a rider in the other’s plan. This way, each person in the relationship will have access to a bigger pool of money for his or her care.
The Plight of the Surviving Spouse
Couples need to remember the two important parts of planning: during care and retirement with both of them still active and during the time where only one survives. Unlike single individuals, married couples must make the necessary arrangements to protect the surviving spouse.
Couples ought to look into various programs and agencies that cater to the long term care of surviving spouses. To cite an example, veterans and surviving spouses can have access to assistance when they need it. This pension benefit, called Aid and Attendance, helps these individuals and their surviving spouses pay for care services that they might need.
The last situation that you would want for your partner is to be dependent on other people when you are no longer there to help.
Prepare Now
Long term care planning is a necessary step that people take great care in taking. One look at the news and you can see just how urgent it is for Americans to find great coverage. Older adults find themselves outliving their savings and consequently turning to their children for help. This, in turn, causes a domino effect among the next generations. Adult children are now using the funds they ought to save for their retirement to fund the care of their elderly parents need.
Couples are lucky in the sense that they do not need to face these challenges alone. Yes, there are pros and cons to planning long term care as a couple, but there is comfort in knowing that you have a partner with you to tackle these issues. Yes, long term care planning for couples will never be easy, but at least there is an extra pair of hands ready to help you get through anything.