Medicare & ageing parents

[ftwspursfan]

My wife and I are moving my MIL in w/us due to financial constraints on her re: Medicare/RX donut hole and the excess expense of a retirement village. I posted some of this on another thread and heard from a couple of people that they are or are considering the same. Is this a trend we are seeing? We are in our early 40s with young kids and I know 4 other families in my SS dept that have either moved a parent in or are going to soon. Any thoughts, RR members? The independent-living retirement villages here in DFW cost $1600/mo min and you still have to pay for minor groceries, gas if driving,Dr visits, phone and extra cable TV if you want it. Most villages cover 30 meals/mo in their dining halls. My MIL has a police pension from my late FIL and SS. The rent goes up at least 5% every yr. Medicare ins is a good deal but the RX donut is a killer.

[vhowell]

My wife and I are moving my MIL in w/us due to financial constraints on her re: Medicare/RX donut hole and the excess expense of a retirement village. I posted some of this on another thread and heard from a couple of people that they are or are considering the same. Is this a trend we are seeing? We are in our early 40s with young kids and I know 4 other families in my SS dept that have either moved a parent in or are going to soon. Any thoughts, RR members? The independent-living retirement villages here in DFW cost $1600/mo min and you still have to pay for minor groceries, gas if driving,Dr visits, phone and extra cable TV if you want it. Most villages cover 30 meals/mo in their dining halls. My MIL has a police pension from my late FIL and SS. The rent goes up at least 5% every yr. Medicare ins is a good deal but the RX donut is a killer.

My mom got evicted a year ago so my kind hearted sister allowed mom to move in with her. ( a landlord was too far in debt to make the payment on her property that she was renting).

Mom's health went rapidly downhill in the last year. She recently had surgery for a knee replacement, and was sent home too early due to our drive-through health care system. Mom wasn't ready to go home and thus lost her balance, hit her head and was put back in the hospital and then sent to a nursing home.

Medicare pays for 100 days per year, and then you are out of luck. My mom has applied for Medicaid which would pay for long term nursing care but was turned down. Her Medicare deductable went up this year and thus my mom gets to try and live on $600 a month SS....while our wonderful congressmen were voting themselves pay raises.........:tsk

This is why our parents are moving in with us. We can fund a war overseas at a million dollars an hour, but the sick and the elderly here are just left to starve.......what if my mom was childless? Who would have taken care of her then??? She used up what little retirement savings she had after 12 years, and now she's broke. Part of it is her own fault for not saving more, but she never made much to begin with.

I am sick of rich politicians born with silver spoons in thier mouths telling us how they "feel our pain" and can "identify with us". Yeah - try living on $600 a month and tell me how good you do, Mr. or Mrs. politician...........that's what they spend on their HAIR in just one month.... maybe that would make a REAL survivor program - take Johnathan Edwards, or Hillary, or even Romney and give them only $600 a month and see how well they do......

[ftwspursfan]

Vhowell says: Medicare pays for 100 days per year, and then you are out of luck.

I gotta check up on this. My MIL is on the Medicare HMO/PPO deal. She is in pretty good health but she is 77 also. You never know when something is going to go wrong.
She has savings and I may invest some in commodities JIC the USD goes down the toilet. As a Christian, I think it is what we are called to do as far as taking care of the elderly. I don't want to live w/my MIL and my wife doesn't want to live w/her mom either, but MIL is of feeble mind and we HAVE to do this. My BIL & SIL are not capable, and she would be flat broke if she lived w/either of them.

[Nova]

Mike your MIL is in a better situation than most elderly. She has a pension & SS. I'm trying to remember the statistics I read. But only something like 20% of people now working have pensions. And a record number of folks are entering retirement with mortgages. So where is the money going to come from to survive while retired?

Social Security was never intended to be a replacement for saving. So I do see a big issue with poor planning. But as a culture we live for today & ignore the needs of tomorrow.

If you are under 50, don't count on Social Security being there for you. It isn't solvent. Although there is a Social Security Trust, the excess FICA goes to pay the general US budget. And the trust gets an IOU from the government. Rather like spending your retirement account on your daily expenses & promising to put the money back in later. Questionable at best, because where is this money going to come from?

My mom & I helped supplement my grama's SS income for the last 15 years of her life. She was widowed in her 50s & didn't qualify (at the time-this has now changed) for my grandfather's pension. We tried to keep her in her own home as long as possible (which was paid off.) But she struggled to make ends meet.
Then she fell a few times & came to live with my mom. Progressively, she worsened to the point where she couldn't walk. It was a struggle to take care of here. Between my mom & I, we managed. But it was tough. Then she had a stroke & went to the hospital & after a nursing home. Medicare covers the first 100days/year of "nursing" level care (not caretaker type care) in a nursing home. Then we pretty rapidly went thru the proceeds from selling grama's house to pay the nursing home.

So yeah, I think this is a trend.

Oh by the way, look into "Health Care Spending accounts" if you need to pay any big planned medical expenses. The dollars are pre-tax. My mom used some to put a stairlift into her house so grama could get around better (early on.)