This woman is enormously stressed she is experiencing first hand the impact of care giving and the effect it is having on her own life. "I should have done this long ago but I didn't want to think about ever needing care. It's time I face the issue. I don't want to inflict this sort of thing on my children. This could happen to me." These are her words not mine!

The next day I met with a 48-year-old woman who purchased Long Term Care insurance from me. As she was leaving she said, " Dorothy, this is what I need to do for me so that I'll feel safe. You can't put a price on peace of mind." Long Term Care insurance can be basic and affordable.

As baby boomers and seniors, sometimes referred to as those 45 and better, we take particular interest in planning for retirement. We help to put our children through college and some of us do this as single parents. It's time to take a long hard look at the very real possibility that some day we will need Long Term Health Care.

The first thing we must do is to remove the term nursing home from our vocabulary. Today 85% of all Long Term Health Care is received OUTSIDE of nursing homes. The policies that are being put in place today are actually designed to keep people out of nursing homes. Care can be received in a variety of places such as; our own home, an assisted living facility, an adult foster care home, a home for the aged, an Alzheimer's facility or even in an adult day care center.

Another woman I spoke to not long ago asked me to please tell her story. In her retirement planning at age 63 she decided to wait until that "magical" age of 65 to buy Long Term Care insurance. She has been involved in health care for many years and is no stranger to the high cost of care. After falling in her side drive one rainy morning in the autumn she lay on her back in the rain for 45 minutes with a shattered femur unable to move. Until a neighbor walking his dog finally found her. Dorothy, she said," I used language that would have made a longshoreman proud. I fully intended to buy my LTC insurance when I turned 65. Waiting was the stupidest mistake of my life and an expensive one. Please tell my story. This is what it cost me after the surgery and hospital stay, and I was in a wheelchair for three weeks.

Private duty nurse 5 days at $354 per day: $1,770.00
Physical therapy 30 minutes per day at $3.00 per minute, $90.00 per day for 5 days: $450.00
Home health care aid $14.00 per hour for 42 Hours per week (6 hours per day for 7 days per week), $588.00 per week times 12 weeks:  $7,056.00
Total: $9,276.00  

These dollars would have paid my LTC insurance premiums for several years. It sounds to me like a very good case for Long Term Care insurance."