Who'll look after you?

A friend just sent this to me on facebook. Kinda cheesy, but reflects the stupidity of the 'who will look after you when you're old' bingo:




'A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year - old grandson.

The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.



The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather's shaky hands and

failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor.

When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.
'We must do something about father,' said the son.

'I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.'

So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner.

There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner.

Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.

When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone.

Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence.


One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor.

He asked the child sweetly, 'What are you making?' Just as sweetly, the boy responded,

'Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up.'


(Then it ends with the parents 'realising the error of their ways' and bringing the grandfather back to the table, but I thought it was more poignant if it ended before then so I cut that bit out)

This just makes me want to cry.

How utterly cruel and selfish, but so very common that people just cast the elderly aside when they are no longer "useful". I worked as a volunteer Sunday service musician in a Masonic nursing home every other weekend from age 12-17 and what I witnessed made an indelible impression on me. Although all of the people who lived there had family and many of them lived locally, there were some who didn't see their family for MONTHS at the time. There was this one old woman who would wait outside on a bench the first weekend every month just waiting patiently for HOURS on her son and his family to come pick her up for the weekend, but they never came. I only recall their coming to visit once, but they were gone before the service was over. I do remember them picking her up one time for a weekend visit around the holidays the WHOLE time I was working there.

So much for having kyds to take care of you in your old age. A lot of these elderly people were unable to care for their own basic needs and needed 24/7 nursing care, but at least a third of them had comitted no other crime other than having grown old. That one old woman I mentioned was perfectly capable of taking care of her own personal needs, but they (the kyds) had sold her house and pocketed all of her assets after her husband died and stashed her away in the home. I always felt sorry for them and it sort of made me wonder about that "kids will take care of you when you are old" nonsense I had always heard. I also can't help but wonder why the famblee in the anecdote had wood scraps on their floor. Unless it was pieces of firewood, I find that rather odd.

There are about 16,000 nursing homes in the U.S. Looking at the photo of one on the Wikipedia page for "nursing home," I guesstimate, by counting the windows, that there are likely around 100 seniors living there. That means around 1,600,000 U.S. nursing home residents total. There are small facilities too that are under the radar so let's say 2,000,000 total.

Then there are places like senior apartments that offer various level of personal care as needed. Sort of a pre-nursing home, more or less, that tries to give seniors as much independence for as long as they can enjoy it before needing more intensive care. Let's just guess another 2 million.

Then there are those who remain in their old home, like my elderly neighbor Bev. I guess that this group is larger, just because the 2 options above are out of financial reach for most people. let's say this group is 5,000,000.

OK. That's coming up to TEN MILLION SENIORS living alone without their family, out of a total U.S. population of 300 million. These elderly people are from an era when pretty much everyone had kids, without even questioning it. Where are those kids?

The ONLY family I know that has elderly parents in the house with their adult children is the Pakistani family of DH's coworker. They have 2 and soon 3 generations living together in one large home, as they did before emigrating. Of all the folks I know, that's the only, sole, single example of kids taking care of parents in their old age.

Is there any reason why modern Moms think that they will be different and that their kids will take care of them in their old age?

Yours truly takes care of his disabled mom full-time, though I will have to try to find a part-time job soon. Long-time posters might remember I took care of my stepdad until he passed away last November. He was a wonderful man. He and I were close, but his first wife poisoned the waters between him and his five children, who wanted nothing to do with him. I miss him every day and would have been happy to care for him for far longer than I had the chance to.

But you're right. Few adult children even attempt to care for their parents today. This is nothing new, though. My maternal grandfather had a stroke in the 1970s and remained bedridden until his death five years later. It fell to my mom, his youngest surviving child who was trying to raise my infant brother and me at the time, to help my grandmother care for him. He had seven other children (six by his deceased first wife and one other by my grandmother), but none lifted a finger to help. None even visited, let alone offer to care for him for an evening or weekend. All pleaded poverty when asked about helping financially, though we knew one was able to buy a new car every year. When he finally passed away, however, all of them came out of the woodwork to see what "Dad" had left them. The joke was on them, as his will left everything to my grandmother.

I also can't help but wonder why the famblee in the anecdote had wood scraps on their floor...I find that rather odd.

Considering the snappy ending, the convenient scraps were just a deus ex magnolia.

Oh, boy, oh boy!

Can't wait until I'm old!=P

I don't know who will take care of me when I get older, though it will likely be DW. However, seeing how these people have got treated by their children, almost ANYoNe would have been preferable.

My mom has already said that if she became unable to care for herself, she'd want to go to a home.

I think a home is better for many reasons (given it's a GOOD home, not like ones you hear about in the news).

1. elderly person is given the level of care they need, 24/7
2. less stressful on all family members
3. elderly person has the camaraderie of like-aged and minded people in the home, they can hang together, talk, etc.
4. no worries about elderly person being left alone, there is always somebody there
5. medical staff is there in case of emergencies
6. family members can have a better relationship with elderly person instead of feeling bitter about messes they've made, etc.

Tell me just HOW it's better for an elderly person to go live with one of his/her kids? To be honest, I would not be able to deal having an elderly parent living with us. I told hubby this before we got married, he agrees. His elderly gram lives with his father and step-mom and I know the strain it has had on their marriage. I like my privacy, if I want to eat dinner in my underwear, I can. If we want to have sex in the living room, we don't have to worry about anybody coming out of their room and catching us.

Greed makes people act stupidly. I saw this firsthand in the settling of the estates of my grandparents (my dad's mom and my mom's dad.) Siblings that NEVER lifted a finger during the elder's decline, sure demanded their "fair share" when it came to dividing the assets. The level of entitlement that I witnessed from aunts and uncles was like watching a bunch of spoiled toddlers fight for a single coveted toy. Talk about family drama!

These were the modest estates of people who worked hard, saved carefully and lived frugally--they were not millionaires. It sure opened my eyes to what kind of people these relatives really were, and made me wonder how ugly things would have gotten if they were actually fighting over huge sums of money.

I feel the same way KidFreeLuvnLife. This bingo about "who will take care of you when you are old", is some leftover tradition from the covered wagon days when there WERE no nursing home or adequate adult care or assisted living facilities. To not have kids back then meant no where to go or means to survive when someone was old and unable to care for themselves for whatever reason. Like I have said before, one of the main reasons that most bingos annoy the hell out of me is because they are parrotted rhetoric and said so often that the ones who say them don't even THINK about what they are saying or what it even means.

Very few American families have elderly parents living with them anymore unless you count the ones who use mee maw for free childcare and maid service. I wouldn't want any relative of mine to be repsonible for tending to my daily needs or to disrupt their lives because of my mere presence. The breeders who say the bingo about "who will take care of you when you are old" generally won't even visit their own grandparents who are living in nursing homes, so it's pretty hypocritical of them to expect their kyds to actually take them in when they are old.

Just because they're in a home, it doesn't mean they need to moulder away in there. One of my GF's mother is in a home after a stroke, but my GF has dinner with her twice a week and they go out shopping at least once a week. It really doesn't take that much effort.

My grandmother lived with my parents for about 12 years before she died suddenly. I'd like to think that when the time comes, and as long as my parents are still relatively sane and don't require 24 hour care, that they'll live with me.

I am one of those people who can't understand all this 'famblee' shit. When famblee is 'shit', DON'T BOTHER WITH THEM!!!

To add my two cents worth, (and I wish to God she'd lived longer so I could have known her better) when I was little, about 8 - 10 years of age thereabouts, I had a relative I called aunt Nenna. She wasn't an aunt, more distant, but I always called her that and, in action, she was an aunt.

As she became frail and elderly, no one else in my moms (and Nennas) family would take her in, so my mom (single with me to raise..whole other story) took Aunt Nenna in. In the entire time mom took care of her (which started even before she moved in with us my mom was the one who looked after things) there were virtually no visits from any of the rest of the so called 'famblee'. Once or twice an uncle (or something) came out briefly, but they never called, wrote, took her out or anything.

Eventually her health failed totally, and the poor old lady was dying. Just plain dying. She was bleeding internally, it couldn't be stopped, and all the damn doctors would do was just pump blood in. My mom asked 'how am I supposed to pay for this? (Nennas money was running out.) The doctors response: "That isn't my problem". Mom fired him on the spot. She found a hospice for Nenna, she was moved there, but she only lasted about 2 days.

The point was, all the money Nenna had had, went for medical bills. There was virtually nothing left over. However, the fucking bastard relatives (led by one particularly vindictive woman) had the audacity to sue my mom claiming she had refused them permission to see auntie, had beat auntie, there had been bruises (Nenna fell into some rose bushes), and other such crapping nonsense: and that the money rightully belonged to them, the righteous outraged relatives. Ha.

Thank God, at least back then, some judges had common sense, and the one drawn to hear the case threw it totally out of court. I have not had any contact with any of these bastards since and frankly, me dears I DO NOT GIVE A HEALTHY DAMN. Famblee, if it rotten, can go to hell and those who mope and whine and fawn on out and out evil cretans... they are idiots.

Think sproggen are gonna care for you? The above scenario is all that one is likely to get. Not a sign of them until the person dies. Then all the vultures come out.

phooey

That's true two cents. The really bad thing is that you don't even have to be elderly to find out what assholes some famblee, including spouses thought to be loyal, can be if you are otherwise young and healthy but have a terrible accident causing debilitating injury. You find out just who cares and just who doesn't really give a damn, when this happens to you. Four years ago I suffered a brain aneurysm caused by a blow to the head in a car wreck and lay in a coma for 3 weeks. "They" said if I DID wake up I would be non communicative and/or a vegetable. For whatever reason, one day I just "woke up", and while it was difficult I made what would appear to be a complete recovery.

In the 3-4 month time period when I was still "out of it", INCLUDING the 3 weeks I wasn't expected to live, the following is what I later found out that my BASTARD of a husband had done;

1)Drained my personal bank accounts which did NOT have his name on them and to which he had never had access in our 10+ year marriage
2)Didn't get me a Christmas present because he didn't want to "waste the money", should I not wake up or if I had, wouldn't know the difference
3)Cashed my commission checks which continued to come in for several months after the accident
4) Began filing for my SSDI and looking for a cheap home to stick me in before there was any final diagnosis and before I had waken up, luckily SS wouldn't go for it since the doctors' reports said it was basically a wait and see diagnosis
5)Went on 2 separate 3 day gambling trips while I was still in the hospital, because he was "stressed out"
6) Didn't change any of the litter boxes in 6 weeks, put one of my cats to sleep because it was shitting on the floor, and tossed two other "fixed" and declawed cats outside who had lived inside since kittenhood. The ones he let stay inside started shitting in their own food and water bowls in protest and he just left it
7) Took UNTOLD time off from work by lying to people that I was bedridden and he had to "help", when in FACT I was alert, taking care of myself, and busy scraping off the layers of filth that he and his kyd had created in my home in my absence. I was back at work when I would see people in town who would be shocked that I was so "normal" and not wheelchair bound and slobbering on myslef, because of all of his lies to gain time off work for his little "trips"
8)Left me a note that he was going on one of his gambling trips (this was after I was home), with NO FOOD in the house, and left his FUCKING KYD there, knowing I could not yet drive which made me have to be responsible to locate transportation to get to the store, etc....at a time when I was still on heavy medication and could still barely walk


etc.............

His famblee, including his kyd's biological mother, did not lift a finger to help with their own kyd/grandkyd/niece The seed of hatred was planted in my heart and it festered with puss. Within a year when I had recovered enough to fully comprehend what had transpired, I packed up and left them wallowing in their own filth and never looked back. That was nearly 3 years ago. I have heard that they blame my head injury for my just up and "leaving them", but that's a pack of lies. It's THEIR fault and I have a deep sense of hate for the whole bunch and only hope they have suffered or will suffer 1/10 the emotional anguish which they /inflicted upon me. THIS kind of famblee can go fuck itself.

My God, Kim! Given that situation (especially with what happened to your cats), I'm surprised you didn't kill the sumbitch! :kill Seriously, you behaved with restraint, and no one rational would blame you for leaving.

My In-Laws are in an assisted living apartment now; Mom is 85 and has Alzheimers, and Pop is 91 but really shaky, literally. We're worried about them, but hubby and I moved ten years ago because of DH's work. We don't know what will happen when one of them goes, because I don't think the other will last long after. It's damned hard, we try to visit them every 3 months or so--we live over 450 miles away. A hard situation to be in, but they don't want to move.

I hate to say it, but some of elderly people are ALONE because they were jerks all their lives.

And just as I won't judge someone who doesn't want kids, I won't judge someone who can't be a 24/7 caretaker for an elderly parent.

Holy christ, people will go to any lengths, won't they?

I'm sorry you had to go thru so much shit, I hope that bastard and his ilk get exactly what is coming to them.

Thanks for the understanding replies to my little outburst above as I didn't intend on going off like that, but once I got started.......

As for some elderly people being alone because they were assholes their whole lives, I have seen that happen as well. There are also a lot of elderly people like my two grandmothers who are 89 and 87, who WANT to live on their own and stay independent for as long as possible. I want to stay in my OWN home until I die which is why I think that the healthcare system which advocates the elderly going straight to nursing homes needs to be revamped. I think it would be cheaper and better for the patient for home health care to take the place of nursing homes in most cases. I also don't see how a round the clock nurse's aid could POSSIBLY cost more than 24/7 nursing home care for cases like most Alzhiemer's patients either who need to be constantly monitored, for instance.

Actually, I don't see ANY reason that a person should be confined to a nursing home unless he is completely mentally and physically incapacitated and/or in need of a doctor at a moment's notice because of his health, there is NO ONE who can do his bill paying, general house maintenance, etc......Even then, I think that a maid, a yard man, the nurses's aid, and a once a month book keeper's assistant would be cheaper than residential living within a nursing home and better for the patient, IF their health would allow. I would like to see these nursing homes become a last resort rather than an expected and accepted temporary lay over of sorts before death. IMHO

KidFreeLuvnLife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
To be
> honest, I would not be able to deal having an
> elderly parent living with us. I told hubby this
> before we got married, he agrees. His elderly
> gram lives with his father and step-mom and I know
> the strain it has had on their marriage.

I agree KidFreeLuvn. I told my mum that I am not an insurance policy which means I have to look after them when they are old because I cannot give up my job to do this like I give up my job to have kids. It is sad to say these things because my parent do not want to go into the nursing home. On top of it. I don't get paid looking after my parent when they old.

If anyone never heard of Human Insurance Policy (not financial). It means in a CF term that the person must have a child so the child can look after the parent when they are old.

I think this Human Insurance policy is the most appauling and sadistic bingo I've ever heard this happens to me all the time. What can I do? because I cannot give up my job to do this as I am not getting any income by looking after my parents when they get old. And what's worse is breeders have kids to do it. I don't know why people come up this shit bingo like this.

I was going to make a topic about this but Fox had beaten me to this.

This is surely a tough issue with many angles, as we have seen in previous posts here.

As for me, my dad, 77, has been living on his own since my mom died 13 years ago at age 59 (from cancer). Dad has been managing by himself rather well. He has a ladyfriend for several years after her husband died in the mid-1990s, too, and she has her own place about 10 miles away. My brother lives about 200 miles away, in a big house with his wife and 4-year-old son. I suppose dad could move in there if he had to, but I have no idea if that is the plan. What my brother, my dad, and I just did was some estate planning for my dad so he doesn't repeat the mistake HIS dad made 20+ years ago. Back then, my dad's dad did no estate planning so the nursing home took nearly all his money in a very short time after he could no longer stay with us. He (my dad's dad) had moved in with us in the early 1980s after his wife died in 1979 and the day-to-day burden of caring for him fell on my mom. That nearly broke up their marriage until my dad's dad, beginning to suffer from Parkinsons, was put into a nursing home, where he died a few years later. My dad's sister and her husband could not take him in because they lived in a one-bedroom apartment. Their children, much older than me, did take him in from time to time, though.

I hope my dad lives for many more years. Thankfully, my brother and I are doing quite well financially, so we aren't awaiting an inheritance. We are each wealthier than he is. I live about 15 miles away so I see him much more often than my brother does. However, my dad has always had more in common with my brother than with me, not that that bothers me. Even though my brother and I have a power of attorney should he become unable to manage his own affairs, I dread the day we have to use it.

Just as my mom wanted to die not in a hospice or a nursing home but in her own home (she did, barely, as we got her out of the hospital about a week before the cancer overtook her), I know my dad wants the same thing. I would dread having to put him in an assisted living facility or nursing home at some point. I would much prefer having someone come in and help him out. Finding someone to do that, depending on the level of home-care he needs, and someone who won't rip him off (like we read about in the papers too often) would be a challenge, too.

Sorry to rant so long, but I thought at least some parts of my rant (i.e. estate planning) would be helpful to others.

Yes deegee, I wholeheartedly agree, estate planning is a necessity. Depending on the state, it's also important that if a nursing home stay is impending, it's IMPERATIVE that as many assets as possible are taken or transferred out of their names. This includes their home, bank accounts, insurance policies with cash value, ANYTHING of value, and that the contents of the home and other personal possessions such as vehicles, are divided among family members. Otherwise, the nursing home can legally seize all assets and hold an estate auction. If they have no verifiable assets then medicaid/medicare will kick in and pay for everything and this will not negatively affect their care, at least not in a state run home. To pay the least taxes, or any if you are particularly sneaky, I think it would be well worth it to hire an accountant, CPA, or tax advisor during this phase of it should it come to that.

To leave it up to the nursing home could cost the family hundreds of thousands of dollars as they will seize,liquidate,and freeze whatever they "estimate" their stay will cost. Medicaid/medicare will ONLY kick in after their life savings and investments have been spent toward their care. It's a nasty business when you think of the patient in the next room to someone who accumulated thousands in assets through a lifetime of hard work and sound investments, who lived on welfare their whole life and never worked a day, getting the exact same care. Unfortunately, it happens all of the time. I guess you could say it's a little nursing home "secret" of sorts, when they offer to "help' relieve the family burden "at a time like this" and handle everything.

KLK, a device one can use to shield assets from the nursing home while boosting one's chance of being eligible for Medicaid is called an Irrevocable Asset Management Trust (IAMT). This enables some control by the grantor (i.e. the elderly parent/s) to appoint or remove trustees (often adult children but can be anyone else) even though the assets are not in the grantor's name. The grantor's house along with anything else of value can be placed into the trust. Once the grantor(s) die, the trustees control the trust so this needs to be co-ordinated with the grantor's Will.

Medicaid has expanded its "look-back" rules to counteract the effectiveness of these trusts so it is important to establish them while the grantor is still reasonably healthy to outlast the lookback period.

Do an internet search of this to find out more about it.

The Who were right.

Note: This is a long post.

Many people have misconceptions about nursing homes and Medicaid. Believe me, I got an education since Mom and my late stepdad became ill. I had already been interested in the topic both because I knew my loved ones were starting to have serious health issues, and because of the news about people managing to game the system. Gaming it is basically over, because Congress and the Clinton and present Bush administrations have steadily tightened the Medicaid rules.

Here's the reality. By the way, I'm not a lawyer, nor am I engaged in legal advice. I'm simply passing along information I've learned over the past several years. See a lawyer if you need legal help, and your mileage may vary. Etc.

You can't just take an elderly person to a nursing home, push her out the car door, and keep going. It never works even remotely like that. Nursing homes are not obligated to accept anybody. Most simply don't have that many available beds, and some facilities have waiting lists. The guideline is that the resident must need constant skilled nursing care. Only in the later stages of Alzheimer's does the patient/would-be resident meet that requirement, for example. Medicaid will not pay if the skilled nursing care requirement isn't met. You hear about some people supposedly putting their parents in a nursing home just so they can try to get their parents' assets. If the parents are able to care for themselves adequately, no bona fide nursing home will accept them. And the children face some unpleasant surprises even if they succeed.

If the elder simply needs help with everyday activities and not skilled nursing care, then they may go into assisted living facilities, which are not nursing homes. Medicaid in most states will not pay anything toward assisted living. Nothing. The elder or the family must pay, and this can run $4K a month or more.

Depending on state rules, nursing homes must have a few "Medicaid beds" for new patients who must use Medicaid right away. Otherwise, most homes want residents to be able to pay their own way for at least a year before going on Medicaid. Now this is typically $5K+ per month.

Since the mid-1990s Medicaid rules have become ever tighter. Now the look-back period is a full five years for title and asset transfers to family members. This is one key area where a lot of misinformation still is spread, as in KidlessKim's post above: "Depending on the state, it's also important that if a nursing home stay is impending, it's IMPERATIVE that as many assets as possible are taken or transferred out of their names. This includes their home, bank accounts, insurance policies with cash value, ANYTHING of value, and that the contents of the home and other personal possessions such as vehicles, are divided among family members. Otherwise, the nursing home can legally seize all assets and hold an estate auction."

Everything in that statement is, today, broadly incorrect. You transfer Dad's house into your name to try to make him eligible for Medicaid just before he applies for it, and you just committed Medicaid fraud. Ditto with any significant money, bank accounts, precious metals, etc. If Dad needs to go into the nursing home now, it's actually five years too late to transfer titles and assets. Try to do that now, and he can be ruled permanently ineligible for Medicaid along with facing criminal penalties. Regardless, the state will go after those assets no matter in whose name they are. You got $10,000 from Mom's savings account last week and she applies for Medicaid this week, the state is coming after you for that ten grand after examining her bank statements.

Of course, usually it's the adult children who want the goodies and are driving the transfers, not the elder. By the time all of this is happening, he/she is probably in bad enough shape to be unaware of what's going on. But they can still face punishment, such as being ruled forever ineligible to receive Medicaid as mentioned.

The state—not the nursing home—is technically the one with the claim on the elder's property. In the wake of a US government to Congress about the extent of illicit asset transfers to make elders poor on paper to qualify for Medicaid, Congress passed a provision in the OBRA law of 1993 mandating that states go after the houses of Medicaid recipients if they weren't doing so already. Some states had been choosing not to. Now they have no choice, though some were slow to change their applicable state laws. Once the last spouse dies or goes into a nursing home, the state is supposed to seize the house to repay Medicaid.

By the way, the feds pay only about half of Medicaid costs. The state must pay the other half, so they have every incentive to ensure that no one cheats. Some states were already going after more and more assets even before Congress acted, so they're well aware of all the tricks. California was the first state to start going after trusts, insurance proceeds, and other nonprobatable assets, and the feds gave the okay to that. Back as far as the late 1980s, Oregon sent social workers to the homes of elderly people applying for Medicaid to do physical searches for hidden cash and assets. This would even include women's purses, dresser drawers, clothes in closets, etc. As one social worker was quoted as telling one woman who got this treatment, "You old people always hide money." My home state (eastern US) has always been tight as well, though not to the extent of searching homes.

Medicare, the general health insurance for the elderly, generally does not pay for nursing home care. There is a limited 100-day exception for skilled nursing care related to hospital stays and that's it. Do not confuse Medicare with Medicaid.

New rules passed a couple of years ago now mandate that the state be made the beneficiary of any trust set up to preserve assets for Medicaid. It's getting ever harder to hide or transfer anything legally, which in my book is a good thing. This program was intended for the poor with no significant assets, not for wealthier people who make themselves look poor on paper by playing games with their property and money. That is unethical and endangers the future of the program. You and I might need it one day.

The next steps being discussed are—

(1) to increase the look-back period to as much as 10 years because of slowly progressing conditions such as Alzheimer's that still allow families to transfer assets five years before Medicaid application; and

(2) to require that all home equity be used for the elder's care before Medicaid kicks in. That would mean that the state or a lender already owns the elder's house before receiving aid, and would completely stop gaming the system. With this change, there would be nothing to transfer to family members.

That's it, in not-quite-a-nutshell. Please forgive me for the long post, but so much misinformation is out there (such as the bit about transferring titles) that it needed correction.

That is a very informative and helpful post about a subject probably most people only learn about at a stressful time when they wish they didn't have to. Thanks k-man.