Caring for Our Parents

When the author and his wife were thrust into the role of caring for their aging parents, he saw first-hand what it meant to battle often indifferent doctors, insurance companies, and nursing homes. He learned what it was like to fight through the emotional pain, and discovered how the irrational way we deliver and pay for long-term care in the United States drives people to the wrong care, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Someone you love will almost certainly need long-term...
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When the author and his wife were thrust into the role of caring for their aging parents, he saw first-hand what it meant to battle often indifferent doctors, insurance companies, and nursing homes. He learned what it was like to fight through the emotional pain, and discovered how the irrational way we deliver and pay for long-term care in the United States drives people to the wrong care, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Someone you love will almost certainly need long-term care before they die. Nearly seventy percent of our parents will rely on this assistance sometime during their old age. It will last for an average of three years, and one in five will depend on it for five years or more. This book tells the sometimes painful, sometimes uplifting, and always compelling stories of the families who struggle every day to care for their loved ones. It also tells how the elderly and disabled, as well as their families, are being financially ruined by the high cost of long-term care. It reveals how private long-term care insurance has failed to protect most middle-class Americans from these catastrophic expenses, and how the weight of seventy-seven million aging Baby Boomers will devastate Medicaid, our nation's already fragile public system for funding this critical day-to-day assistance. And it shows how we can repair the tattered safety net that is so essential to the well-being of our aged and disabled. When the author and his wife were thrust into the role of caring for their aging parents, he saw first-hand what it meant to battle often indifferent doctors, insurance companies, and nursing homes. He learned what it was like to fight through the emotional pain, and discovered how the irrational way we deliver and pay for long-term care in the United States drives people to the wrong care, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Someone you love will almost certainly need long-term care before they die. Nearly seventy percent of our parents will rely on this assistance sometime during their old age. It will last for an average of three years, and one in five will depend on it for five years or more. This book tells the sometimes painful, sometimes uplifting, and always compelling stories of the families who struggle every day to care for their loved ones. It also tells how the elderly and disabled, as well as their families, are being financially ruined by the high cost of long-term care. It reveals how private long-term care insurance has failed to protect most middle-class Americans from these catastrophic expenses, and how the weight of seventy-seven million aging Baby Boomers will devastate Medicaid, our nation's already fragile public system for funding this critical day-to-day assistance. And it shows how we can repair the tattered safety net that is so essential to the well-being of our aged and disabled.