Sunday, 13 September 2009

What Is The Difference Between Long Term Care Insurance And Medicaid?

By Jillian Leigh

Everyone should know all the details before they make a decision on there long term health care, this is why I would like to tell you what is the difference between long term care insurance and medicaid. This way you will know which is the best option for your circumstances.

If you become ill at any point in your life you will want to know that you will be able to receive the care you need without worrying about others having to foot the bill. This is something that long term care insurance will be able to do for you. It will also mean that your assets will not be at risk and you will be able to keep any savings you have or pass them on to a loved one.

Anyone with a long standing illness or disability may need some care during the day that your family cannot provide for them. With long term care insurance, the cost of someone coming in on a daily basis to ensure you are ok and also to administer and medicines you may need as well as helping you take care of yourself is covered.

If you do wish to have help which means you are not constantly within the four walls of home there are day care facilities that you can be taken to by either a family member or pre-arranged transportation. They will be able to give you the care you need and also if you are able provide activities which will keep your body and mind as alert as possible.

Anyone who is in need of 24 hour care, may want to go into a residential home, this could prove costly if you did not have the long term care insurance to take care of it for you and your family could end up footing the bill if they have savings. This will mean that you do not need to worry about any evening care you may need as there are trained medical staff on all the time to meet the needs of anyone who requires it.

Although you may be fit as a fiddle now you never know what could happen, and being a burden on family or a spouse is something most people would not want to happen which is why they choose to take out the long term care insurance so the costs of any help that is needed will be paid for. It has been shown that during their lives half of the population will at some stage need such help, whether through age, illness or disability. If you choose to have medicaid then you will find that once you are better or if you do then the cost will still have to be recovered and this could mean that assets you wanted to pass on to family members have to be sold to pay for this.

Medicaid is for people who cannot financially pay for the care they need, it is funded by the government, but the amount of help they will give is limited, and you should be aware of that.

If you wish to have help at home this is something that is not usually covered by medicaid so they will be more likely to insist you go into residential care, however the homes which the medicaid covers are limited so you will not have a massive choice of them as you would if you were insured.

To qualify for medicaid your assets and savings can be no more than $2000. If they are then they will be taken to cover costs or medicaid will not cover care until the amount of money in your savings dwindles to this amount. To get the help from medicaid in the past people have given their savings to family members or have put them to a different account. It has been made aware to the government and they will now take action against anyone who does this and they will refuse you application which will mean you will have to find another way to fund long term care until the amount equal to what you have given away in relation to what a nursing home would cost is covered.

Before making your choice you will need to think about the good and bad points to both ways of funding your long term care, as you will never know no matter how healthy you are now what could happen in the future. You will have the peace of mind that your family will not have to pay the care you have received and know that your assets will go to whom it is you wish them to not to the government.

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