There’s been plenty of talk about Medicare, the public health program for the elderly. Many people don’t realize that Medicare does not cover most of the costs for long-term care. As a result, more and more elderly Americans and their families are facing some heart-wrenching choices about health care and about their finances. In this show, I will discuss coverage options for long-term care, the many ways to pay for it, the pitfalls we can avoid when funding it, and the conversations we need to be having now with our loved ones to prepare for this final phase in life.
Key Citations

* Public coverage for long-term care: longtermcare.gov
* Long-term care cost estimator by state: Genworth

Transcript
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Welcome to The Powers Report Podcast. I am your host, Janis Powers. The show brings you candid, unique and data-driven perspectives on the health care industry. I believe that any solution that is going to positively impact the American health care system has to satisfy two major criteria: financial viability and behavioral incentive alignment. In other words, access to high quality care can only be achieved if we can afford it, and if we behave in ways that optimize our health. Please subscribe to our show on iTunes or on your preferred podcasting platform and connect with us on social media. Again, this is Janis Powers, and welcome to The Powers Report Podcast.
In this episode, I will talk about an issue that scares me and should scare you, too: long-term care. Every day, 10,000 people age into the Medicare program. More people are getting older at a quicker clip and they’re living longer. The older people are, the more likely they are to need some sort of long-term care, which makes this topic especially important.
The thing that’s most concerning about long-term care is that we don’t know if we’re going to need it. If we do need it, we don’t know what kind of care we’re going to need, and we don’t know how long we’re going to need it. We can buy long-term care insurance but since we can’t articulate what we’re going to insure for, we won’t know if our insurance is satisfactory until maybe, it’s too late.
In this show, I will talk about the different kinds of long-term care there are, because it’s a big umbrella term. I’ll talk a lot about payment and coverage options because I always like talking about how things are supposed to be funded. And I’ll pepper in some advice about what you can do … besides pray that you’ll never need long-term care.
So, let’s take a step back. Long-term care is an all-encompassing term that can include a lot of different options. The most extreme long-term care is for patients who will never be able to live independently and are housed in facilities that offer a high level of clinical care. This applies to folks with major physical disabilities and/or those with cognitive issues, like dementia. On the other end of the spectrum there is Home Health Care that comes to a patient’s home a couple of times a week to help with non-clinical “life” issues, like shopping and cleaning. And there’s every permutation in between.
There’s also a dizzying array of coverage options. The most important thing to know is that Medicare offers limited coverage for long-term care. In fact, it’s easier to say that Medicare just doesn’t cover long-term care. When we’re talking about an extended condition which requires staying in a specialized facility, the entire stay probably won’t be covered.
But the program does cover some stuff like skilled nursing care required after at le...