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What is Long-Term Care? When people consider the subject of long-term care, they often think about nursing homes. In fact, long-term care has little to do with nursing homes. Understanding the difference can help you protect your family and finances.

The Consequences of Living Longer

Long-term care is a continuum of care services and housing that you will need later in life. Think you won’t live a long life? Think back 25 years ago. If you had cancer or a stroke, you simply died. Few ever heard of Alzheimer’s.

Today, it is the leading cause for long-term care services. The longer you live, the more likely you are to need care. The question is not who will take care of you, because your family will most often, but rather what will that care do to your family and finances.

Long-Term Care is Usually Custodial Care

Long-term care is defined as needing assistance with your activities of daily living (toileting, bathing, dressing, eating, transferring from one point to another, and continence). It also includes cognitive impairment so severe that the individual needs constant supervision.

If you need custodial care, chances are it will be delivered in the community, not in a nursing home. Many of you have heard compelling statistics from The New England Journal of Medicine stating that 43% of those over age 65 will need nursing home care. What the article actually said is that that number may spend some time in a facility. The fact is, few end their days in one. Every study conducted finds that care is overwhelmingly provided at home. The key question, of course, is who is going to pay for it? Who Covers the Cost?

Medicare & VA

Medicare, the primary health care program for retirees pays only for skilled or rehabilitative care, not custodial care in any venue. Medicaid, a federal and state program for financially needy individuals will pay for custodial care, but primarily in nursing homes. Funding for home care and assisted living is very limited and based on availability of funds. Veterans believe that the VA will pay for home care, adult day care, or assisted living. As with Medicaid, funding is limited and generally based on service-related disability. In fact, the federal government has as much said this to veterans by encouraging them to purchase long-term care insurance through the new Federal Long-Term Care Insurance program. The result is that consumers are forced to pay privately for their care.

Unfortunately, the best thought-out retirement plan rarely takes into consideration living a long life. Put another way, those assets and income have been allocated to pay for retirement, not for the consequences of living a long life. This results in the need to invade principal and divert income. As a result, one of a seniors’ greatest fear, outliving their assets, literally may come true.

The Role of Long-Term Care Insurance

The use of long-term care insurance thus becomes an important part of planning for disability caused by living a long life. The product has two roles: helping keep families together and allowing your retirement portfolio to execute for the purpose for which it was intended, namely retirement.

From a family perspective, who will provide your care? Like it or not, children will play a key role. Long-term care insurance (LTCI) doesn’t replace the need for family involvement in providing care but rather builds on it. It pays professionals to assist the person with the toughest tasks such as toileting, bathing, feeding and continence. This, in turn, allows the family to provide care better and longer at home. That leads to a critical question: have YOU planned for the consequences of living a long life? From a financial point of view, LTCI allows your retirement plan to stay intact. That is particularly important given the recent steep decline in portfolio value. The product, in effect, protects the balance of your account value.

LTCI also protects income. Although you may qualify for Medicaid to pay for nursing home costs by transferring assets, your income (pension, social security, IRA and or 401k payout) cannot be protected. When buying this insurance, look for a long-term care specialist. Consider their training, educational credentials, and commitment to help solve your long-term care needs. The key is whether they talk first about a plan or a product. If they are interested in the plan, you are dealing with a professional. If they focus first on product and price, consider getting another opinion.Before you go out and buy a policy go to Long Term Care Insurance Guide, ask questions and request a long term care insurance quote. We represent 20 of the top LTCi providers. This gives you tremendous options.

Self-employed people in Texas have a couple of options when it comes to health insurance in Texas. They may choose to buy insurance through an individual health insurance company or an HMO. The same types of policies and coverage that are available through employer sponsored plans are available to self-employed people; the difference is that the self-employed person has to pay the full premium themselves.

This usually means that the individual buying health insurance in Texas will have to pay quite a bit more for the same type of coverage. In addition to the fact that employees get part of their premium paid for by their company, they also get a better rate because of being part of a large group. Just like anything else, you get a better deal when buying in bulk.

The choices available for individual health insurance in Texas include: HMO’s or managed health care—these individual plans pay for certain medical expenses at a predetermined rate to physicians and hospitals in their network. The biggest drawback of this type of insurance is that you are limited to doctors and hospitals that are in your insurance company’s network.

You should also be aware that health insurance companies in Texas may check into your medical history when choosing whether to insure you and what premium to charge you as well. This may seem discriminatory, but it is a common practice among insurance companies. They want to make a profit on you and if you have had a lot of illnesses, they may feel you are too big of a risk and deny your claim or assess you a higher premium to cover their costs.

Your dependents are also eligible for coverage under your individual health insurance in Texas. Dependents include your children and any children that you have custody of. Your children do not have to live with you to be covered under your plan and often non-custodial parents are required to provide health care insurance for their children. You children are eligible to be on your policy until they are 18 unless they are full-time college students and then they can be covered until they are 25. Certain disabilities will enable your children to remain on your policy indefinitely.

Every health insurance company in Texas is a little different. They all cover different things for different amounts and have various co-pays and deductibles. You want to fully understand all the differences before making a purchase decision. Your health and the health of your family depends on the right insurance coverage so you want to choose wisely.

Once you have purchased health insurance in Texas you want to read your policy cover-to-cover and be sure you fully understand your coverage and any exceptions that might apply. Sometimes there are limits of what you can have done in a year and how much you have to spend before your insurance kicks in. Keeping accurate records is also important to be sure you get the coverage you paid for.This article about Texas Health Insurance is brought to you by Texas Health and Jordan FeRoss. You need to check out their new Health Insurance in Texas website for cool hints on health insurance.