"Solutions for elder-care issues are within reach" by Tracy Christen Reimann, Esq.

Originally published in Journal News, July 18, 2008 (Download PDF)

Re the elder-care issues implicated in the death last week of 85-year-old Joseph Pressman of Beacon, who died after his caregiver allegedly left him in a broiling car in Peekskill while he went off to work:

I'm an optimist so I'm hopeful that the early 2008 campaign pleas to focus more attention on poverty issues could ultimately help elderly Americans. This is primarily - and unfortunately - because "older adults" and "poverty" are increasingly sharing space in the same sentence. There is no escaping the fact that even though many people retire with nice retirement benefits and savings, they also are living long enough to deplete their nest eggs while facing mounting costs for medicine, health care and housing appropriate to their needs.

Hence a problem that local, state and federal legislators had better start addressing. And so, too, the general public because everyone - older adults, their adult children, community leaders, employers who are seeing workers take time off to care for parents, providers of services to senior citizens, etc. - are vulnerable to the challenges presented by an environment in which one in five citizens are 65 or older.

What a difference 80 years can make. In 1950, every person on Social Security was backed by close to 15 individuals in the work force. Today we are told that by 2030, the ratio of workers to Social Security recipients is expected to drop to roughly 2 to 1.

Additionally, our fastest-growing sector of the population is people over the age of 85, a disproportionately high percentage of whom are starting to discover that monthly Social Security checks do not cover their cost of living. And how fast is this sector growing? Demographers say their numbers will rise from 3.6 million in 1995 to 18.2 million in 2050.

With nursing home bills easily topping $150,000 annually in many areas of the country, and home-care costs rising, too, the situation appears well on its way to getting worse before meaningful solutions are fashioned.

One possible antidote to this numbers game is to transfer assets from a care recipient to an adult child care provider. Personal care contracts can be established so that a parent's funds are used to pay the adult child care provider. This allows: a) Medicaid funds to kick in sooner, b) nest eggs created over a lifetime to be passed on to adult children and spare members of the sandwich generation the financial burden of simultaneously caring for parents and children and c) relieve aging parents of feeling they are a burden to their children.

Still another solution is to provide better rehabilitation, prostheses, repair of wheelchairs and other supportive devices to people with physical disabilities. Approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of recipients of long-term care are individuals with pre-existing physical disabilities. At a time when the "elderly disabled" are another rapidly growing population sector, attention to disabilities can keep people out of institutions and significantly reduce the cost of their care.

Other solutions include use of Supplemental Needs Trusts to provide for the continuing care of loved ones with special needs due to a disability or the physical or mental effects of advancing years. By utilizing Special Needs Planning, there is not a loss of existing entitlements but the availability of funds that supplement care and provide for services not covered by continually decreasing government programs and benefits.

The wisest move is to explore elder planning options simultaneously when considering retirement. By planning before a crisis and while the individual is still enjoying the "salad days" of early retirement, the options are plentiful, and the years to allow the planning to mature are present.

Yes, poverty among older adults will be a major challenge in this new century. But the attention that the subject is receiving - combined with the fear it is generating and the inspirational lessons from past successes against threats to our future - warrant optimism. How we respond will significantly shape what this country looks like in 2050.

So let the responses begin.

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