Posted on 11/21/2011 5:27:15 PM PST by stillafreemind
It's a kind of circular fraud scam, from what I have seen.
The children of an elderly homeowner talk to an “estate planner” and come up with the following estate planning scheme:
The assets the elder acquired and saved to pay for their own care in their old age is liquidated, several years before they need 24/7 care.
The “family” then declares the elder destitute, and applies on their behalf for “free nursing home care” via government programs originally meant for the poor and indigent.
This way,the family preserves “their” inheritance, and does not let the government cheat them out of their share of their parents savings.
That having been the pervasive legal scam of the last generation, I'm not shocked “they” are now surprised when they are old and infirm, and find themselves in substandard facility's.
Who did they think would be left to pay for their ponzi scheme?
In olden times, very few went to nursing homes, just the poor and those with no family. Of course people didn’t live as long either and so debilitating conditions like cancer and dementia were also pretty rare. Of course, you could also argue that placement in a home causes the person’s physical/mental condition to deteriorate quickly.
I can’t pinpoint an exact reason for it, but I have my theories such as a breakdown in the traditional family structure and also the fact that the population of the developed world in general is aging and there’s substantially more old people now than in past eras.
The tax burden has also increased and forced women into the workforce.
Good observation.
What effect, if any, has that had on men's desire to get married?
Yes.
And also, the more family is around, the harder it is for a place to get away with stuff like that.
I worked in nursing homes several of them not in direct patient care but maintenance. My wife was a CNA for 5 years before we met at work. Her patients were her babies, her grandmother, grandfather, she cared for. If she saw abuse she confronted the abuser and told her supervisor as well. She could have made better money in a clothing factory but liked her job wiping the poop up and all else that went with it.
There are more elderly in nursing homes for many reasons. When I was growing up {I'm in my mid 50's} elders often died of conditions that today people survive. People are living longer but with age many times comes serious medical issues. A patient today with treatable {treatable is not the same as curable many times} can live well over a decade with treatment but things like Chemo take a huge toll on the elderly. Dementia/Alzheimer's is another. It can hit in your 40's- your 100's. It hits when it hits. Yes for at least part of the disorder a secure facility is a wise move unless you have a mega family that can do 24/7 don't take your eyes off of them care. I've seen everything from cancer to patients in advanced STD and I don't mean AIDS.
I am also a caregiver of 26 years and I can speak from that point of view as well. I do nursing at home. I am my wife's caregiver including nurse. I learned it fast. Same wife BTW who was the CNA I now care for. She is a quad. I believe in family caring for family. I told my parents that for as long as I was able I would also be their caregiver.
Dad died at home last month. We did have hospice care but my mom in her late 70's myself, and another family member did the care actual. Hospice checked in a couple times a week. You have too so you can get the needed pain meds etc. Cancer is one bad bully. The last two weeks were emotionally hard the last three days of his life he could not swallow and was unresponsive.
I've seen a lot. I've nearly lost my wife several times just getting her to an ER in time. I did loose my first wife too a massive heart attack in her early 20's. This was different. This wasn't come visit an hour and go home then one day the home or hospital calls. This was being there with the person and it will be something that takes you time too deal with afterward when they pass. In the end you pray for GOD's mercy too take them. Think about this as it is what you face doing the care. I have no regrets but the caregiver has to understand the task and have the mental ability to cope for the patient {family members} sake and get the job done.
If a person thinks or feels they do not have the ability emotionally, physically, as well as being able to do care that even may bring them pain then yes a nursing home is a wise choice. I see no shame whatsoever in it. Do what you think is right for them and for you.
Used too be when people had a heart attack all the medical options they had was waiting on the next one and I remember that option was all my grandmother had when I was 6. I remember her oxygen tent in my aunts home.
Nursing Homes are supposed to have inspections and it's for a good reason. Good inspectors will not announce their arrival. As well most states dealing in Medicaid or Medicare do have an Inspector Generals office to answer too and usually an arm of that office inspects and investigates complaints etc as well. That is who you go too. An employee or family member can do it and not give their name.
BTW my wife caught her patients family member in abuse. The woman went into the patients room and poured cold water on her mother. Then she went too the nurse saying her mother was laying in urine and had been doing so for a long time because it was not warm. My wife had checked the patient about 10 minutes before when the family member was out of the room she was dry. So what busted the family member? Urine stains water doesn't.
Also there has been radical changes in the past decade in just what constitutes a nursing home. Assisted living facilities can often do what nursing homes did before. They can handle Dementia by locking the patient inside a secure unit. They are free to walk around etc but for their safety can not open the doors too leave the unit itself. They have a nurses and it is much more non clinical and relaxed for the patient. My sibling is in one. She gets better treatment there and is safer there for now.
Other assisted living where mental capacity is not a factor by physical capacity is the patients can come and go as they please anywhere themselves. The residence go there because they are fed, rooms cleaned, clothes washed, etc Family comes and goes as they please and for the resident it allows them something many cherish as long as they possibly can and that is retaining some of their independence. I have seen assisted living residents that a decade ago would have been stuck in a nursing home because they lacked ability too keep their home up because of issues such as being confined too a wheelchair.
Look at the reality of numbers also. Do the math. If a patient is lets say 80 how old are the patients kids? 62 maybe? Lots of difference in a 20-50 year old doing care giving than someone in their 60's being such full time. To beat it all I'm disabled myself. There may come a point we have to move to assisted living as well.
As for the race factoring in? Logical answer is many die younger from lack of early medical care or inherit diseases not normally hitting white patients. There is a difference in the life expectancy though I'm certain. But I knew plenty of black patients. Go look in a county ran NPO ran facility.
“There are more elderly in nursing homes for many reasons. When I was growing up {I’m in my mid 50’s} elders often died of conditions that today people survive. People are living longer but with age many times comes serious medical issues. A patient today with treatable {treatable is not the same as curable many times} can live well over a decade with treatment but things like Chemo take a huge toll on the elderly. Dementia/Alzheimer’s is another.”
Exactly. We’ve started to realize that perhaps today’s more advanced medicine isn’t such a good thing after all. Up to the 1970s or so, it was rare to see anyone live to 80+, especially men. And when you developed a health issue, it meant the speedy end of you. That’s perhaps why my grandfather did not seek heart surgery when he needed it. Because he decided it was his time. And so he went out still active and able-bodied, not a sad vegetable being wheeled around by an illegal immigrant nurse.
Albert Einstein died of an anyeurism after refusing surgery. He said “It is tasteless to keep life alive artificially. I’ve accomplished enough; it’s time to go now and I will do it elegantly.”
We have epidemics of cancer and dementia that didn’t exist in the past because of our futile attempts to extend a person’s life beyond the time when they should have gone.
“I’ve seen a lot. I’ve nearly lost my wife several times just getting her to an ER in time. I did loose my first wife too a massive heart attack in her early 20’s.”
She died of a heart attack in her 20s? Unbelievable. I’ve heard of women succumbing to strokes in middle age (my great grandmother for example), but not that young.
“In the end you pray for GOD’s mercy too take them”
Indeed. Sometimes you have an aged relative suffering in the worst way imaginable, and deep down, you want that blood clot or pneumonia to come and finally put them out of their misery.
“As for the race factoring in? Logical answer is many die younger from lack of early medical care or inherit diseases not normally hitting white patients. There is a difference in the life expectancy though I’m certain. But I knew plenty of black patients. Go look in a county ran NPO ran facility.”
The average lifespan for black men is 69 and 76 for black women (whites are 76 and 80, respectively).
Myself, I wouldn’t want to live longer than 70. If I died in my sleep of a heart attack at like 65 or something, I’m fine with that. Living to an advanced age just isn’t worth it from my POV.
My dad was diagnosed with prostate caner in his early 70's and for 9 years of it was treatable even without chemo therapy. The doctors had basically told him he would outlive the cancer because the odds were another disorder or condition would kill him before that happened. But other than the cancer he was much healthier than they thought and at the end the chemo stopped working and the cancer spread rapidly at the end even likely too the brain. It not only stopped working it eventually robbed him of his cognitive abilities as well. A younger person might have shaken that aspect off but by then he was in his 80's.
Don't get me wrong the doctors were great and we hold no ill whatsoever for them doing what they believed was right. They looked at saving life as in most cases a doctor should. The doctors really thought he'd outlive the cancer and likely a less horrid ailment take him and I can understand that.
I'm against euthanasia for ethical and moral reasons. In todays moral standards {rather extreme lack thereof} it would be like Hitlers Holocaust but this time in the name of corporate cost savings with governments approval and encouragement even mandating such. At the same time though I can support a persons individual decision to let nature takes it's due course and let medical science provide all them all comfort possible if requested. That was my dads final choice he stopped the treatments.
My personal religious belief is that GOD for His reasons lessened mans life span. That is in The Bible as well. My dad told me months earlier he didn't fear death and he was ready both mentally and spiritually that made it easier. I already knew from my early childhood he was ready spiritually because he taught me there is Christ and there is salvation.
Solomon would have problems sorting through some of the health issues today. Like it says in the song The Gambler about how you leave this world "The best that you can hope for is too die in your sleep." And like the preacher said at dads funeral we all have that appointment too face our death.
My opinion is that only a relatively small number of people actually have the genetic ability to live to advanced age and the rest are just being kept alive artificially. Michaelangelo lived to 88 at a time when most people didn’t reach 70. So we can conclude he must have had very good genes to be able to live that long without any of today’s medicine.
“I’m against euthanasia for ethical and moral reasons. In todays moral standards {rather extreme lack thereof} it would be like Hitlers Holocaust but this time in the name of corporate cost savings with governments approval and encouragement even mandating such. At the same time though I can support a persons individual decision to let nature takes it’s due course and let medical science provide all them all comfort possible if requested. That was my dads final choice he stopped the treatments.”
I agree fully about that. To give another example Eppie Lederer (Ann Landers) was perfectly healthy up to the age of 83 when she developed bone cancer. She decided it was time to go, refused any treatment and died a few months later. My opinion is that you can do whatever you want with yourself, but be forewarned that trying to cheat death for as long can leave you a nursing home vegetable.
“My personal religious belief is that GOD for His reasons lessened mans life span. That is in The Bible as well. My dad told me months earlier he didn’t fear death and he was ready both mentally and spiritually that made it easier.”
It’s because of the decline of religious belief in society that we can’t accept our relatives’ death. When you think there’s no afterlife, it’s a lot harder to deal with this.
The WWII generation coddled their children to a high degree because they’d spent their youth in the Depression and a war where they had nothing. Boomers consequentially became spoiled and lazier than their parents, and in turn made _their_ children even softer.
Of course the WWII gen, a lot of them became selfish pricks in their old age. My grandmother and great aunt were just the type who were completely convinced that their generation had all the answers and that their children couldn’t possibly ever be responsible adults. They were (incidentally) the first generation in which the majority of them lived to be old (since lifespans were shorter in past times), and the first time in history that senior citizens were a politically and economically important demographic. Up to that time, the population of seniors was not only small, but disorganized, poor, and distrustful of government. The net effect of Social Security was also a wholesale redistribution of wealth from younger people to old ones.
That generation tended to have a very high degree of faith in government and science to solve all of mankind’s problems, while Boomers became the exact opposite. They thusly rebelled against the plastic corporate gray flannel suit 50s and 60s America that their parents presided over. So when the 70s came, there was a deep-seated mistrust of the establishment and suddenly everyone gets into all this hippie stuff about natural healing, nutrition, Eastern religions, etc. And later on, the evangelical Christian movement emerged as a backlash against the sexual revolution.
Remeber: it was mostly Boomers and Silent Gens (who tended to be Republican-oriented) that put Reagan in office, not the Democrat New Dealers.
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