At risk of financial collapse: elderly care costs skyrocketing

This article makes it clear that older Americans receive far less support than their peers in other countries. This is partly the result of decades of persistent efforts to demonize any support that can be defined as "entitlement," i.e., social assistance. It may also be partly the result of a failed experiment with long-term care insurance. The market should take care of it!

Public assistance for retirees may be limited to warehouse facilities for the poor, i.e., almost entirely state-funded boarding homes funded by Medicaid.

The disadvantages of long-term care insurance.

But as many readers are well aware, the long-term care insurance industry has largely collapsed. Insurers had no experience with this product and grossly overestimated the level of dissolution.

Elderly and residential care facilities

The last likely factor is the rising rate of dementia. And, as many readers probably know, nursing homes and assisted living facilities with normal conditions (not counting low-income states like Alabama) want seniors to join the independent living phase (very little care, so fees there offset nursing home care) and require a purchase of $400,000-$500,000 or even more, which in most facilities is non-refundable upon death, even if the resident was current on monthly payments.