No Long-Term Care Insurance? Read This!
There are several reasons why consumers may choose not to buy long-term care insurance. Some of those reasons may be based on very sound decisions. For instance, if you have made a good research into the cost of premiums from several of the financially sound major carriers and have realized that the cost if much more than you can bear, then long-term care insurance is not for you. But if you are like most people, the real reason that you are hesitant to prepare for possible future long-term care costs has very little to do with reasoning or sound decisions. Your hesitation is most likely based on feelings and emotions. Many people live in a state of denial about their possible need for assisted care services in the future. This is always because they have been healthy; therefore, they find it hard to even picture themselves in a state where they may need assistance with activities of daily living.
Or maybe their parents have died suddenly with or within a short period of time, so they figure that most likely, the same will happen to them. Or maybe the feeling of denial is too strong that very little thought has gone into the matter at all. If that is the case, this subject is probably so depressing to most of these people that they have consciously chosen to delay any decision about purchasing long-term care insurance until later. And that time will never come. Why? None all of these thought processes are based on fact. We all know that good health can change overnight. And also, I knew someone whose health situation changed greatly within a short period of time. This risk obviously increases with age, so the chances of it happening to any individual, including you and me, are very real. Due to the advances in medical science in recent years, using the health history of your parents as an exact guide for your own future home health care doesn’t work.
It is indeed obvious that more and more people are living longer and often need more in the last years of their life. And long-term care is extremely expensive. If ever you are one who refuse to think about their future health care needs, ask yourself this: who will be left to make this decision for you? Refusing to think about the subject does not make the possibility of needing long-term care any less real. It simply defers the decision to those you love the most. They will often have to make decisions about your care at the last minute, when the choices are extremely limited, unpleasant and expensive. Our families will be well served if we all decide now to take responsibility for our own future health care needs and make sound decisions based on facts instead of unreasonable emotions.
