Why do we avoid planning for Long Term Care?
Information for this post is sourced from Genworth Financial. All opinions are mine.
We can all come up with many reasons to avoid planning for our futures
Excuses we use to avoid planning for Long Term Care
- My spouse/children will do that planning when the time comes
- I am as healthy as a horse, what do I need Long Term Care for?
- I am not old enough to plan for Long Term Care
- I have enough money saved to deal with Long Term Care when I have to
- This topic makes me uncomfortable
- The government will take care of me
- Long Term Care policies are too expensive
- I’ll do it next year
My Confession, a New Year’s resolution
I find that my husband and I are definitely in the avoidance trap for many areas of our life. We have an excellent retirement plan but other areas are really suffering. We have no long term care plan, no will, no estate plan and no death plan. Why is that? It all comes down to avoidance. We simply do not want to face that we are getting older, that we have to talk about these difficult issues, and that we have to make big grown-up decisions.
Planning is messy. We are both previously divorced with children from those divorces. How do we sort out all the issues involved with that aspect? Will avoiding the issue help? No! Avoidance is a solution, a bad one but a solution nevertheless. A better solution would be for Walt and I to sit down tackling one issue at a time, especially long term care. A great New Year’s resolution, wouldn’t you say?
Steps to Overcome Avoidance
When are YOU going to overcome your avoidance of Long Term Care planning?
It’s a hard balance…something you don’t want to do but know you need to. We recently had family members pass and left the burden to their kids. I know they didn’t mean to; planning is just one of those things we mean to do but is easy to put off. There is so much going on everyday to deal with that it is easy to put off. Plus, planning for ourselves is hard but also makes us realize that our spouse has to plan, too, and we really don’t want to deal with that.
With the hectic day to day life we lead, planning for long term care seems kind of far fetched. However, with the changes in health care and services, it is of importance. It is difficult to get done.
I have a will, but none of the other stuff, so your article just gave me a wake up call. Thanks
When my husband’s cancer metastasized to his brain, he felt deeply guilty of leaving me with a mess because he hadn’t made out a will. It was something we both had discussed many times but not sat down to do. I am happy to say that we worked out all of the details and our wills, etc. are all complete.
oh Hugs to you Jeanine. I had no idea. You are a perfect case why it’s good to get it done now. I am so glad you were able to address it. The Chief Blonde
I ONLY LIVE ONE DAY AT A TIME BECAUSE NO ONE PROMISED ME I WOULD WAKE UP
this is such a powerful article the new year will be here before you know it
We so need to do something to take care of ourselves. My husband will be 65 in a couple months and I am 63. He will soon be on Medicare and in a short period of time I will a policy for myself when he retires. This is a wake up call for me to get on the ball about our future.
I am 67 and my wife is 40. Knowing I am older, we need to check into this and prepare. It is just so hard to do sometimes.
It’s good that you and your husband finally decided to plan for long term care. Good luck! Also, your post is very timely for Thanksgiving so we included it in our weekly digest. You can read it here http://www.ltcoptions.com/weekly-digest-thanksgiving-long-term-care
November is Long Term Care Awareness Month, but you probably knew that. It’s definitely an issue to address. One way to address medical is with whole life…it can accrue some cash value that you can borrow against for medical, but it is not the same (or as thorough) as LTCI if someone’s health fails. Another thing to consider is disability insurance, depending on your financial situation. Most families are a paycheck away from devastation, so disability would destroy a lot. But plan! Complicated but worth it. Not planning would be a lot more complicated.