Mom's been in the hospital with a broken leg for nearly 3 weeks. We expect her to be in hospital for another week and then in convelescent care for a few weeks after that.
Since she won't be assessed as needing nursing care, she won't qualify for grovernment assistance to pay for the help she will need to get around, my sister and I will have to provide that help - and how do you calculate that cost - or pay for someone else to do it out of our own pockets because Mom has limited funds. Whether we do it ourselves, or pay someone else to do it, the emotional drain on us and Mom is going to be tremendous. We know what it was like before this latest (not the first) break and now we will need to be even more vigilant.
We along with one of our 4 other siblings have decided to bear the cost of placing Mom in a retirement community with full services - one of those too good to be true ones you see advertised on tv - we think she'll be happy there and when we visit, we can visit and not be worried about what needs to be done.
The cost of this placement is about equal to what it was costing us to keep her in her city-subsidized apartment, but we won't have the worry so it's a no-brainer for us. Our other siblings have different opinions and that's become a problem, but they'll just have to get over it.
So, I started out talking about hidden costs of health care.
We are not alone. In talking to the manager of this facility, we discovered that most of the residents are having their costs underwritten by their children!
I'm living off the pension money that I worked hard to accumulate and now I'm paying out some of that money to care for my aged mother. In addition to paying out the money, I'm spending time caring for her - time that I could potentially be working and earning more money, so in effect, I'm spending the money twice + plus the interest - somebody do the math, my head hurts.
I won't have money to pay for this nice place to live when I'm tired of cooking and cleaning for myself.
So maybe the Amereekans have the right idea after all. Only the fit will survive into old age. Only the rich will survive into old age. The rest, lacking adequate health care will have died off.
Just like in the jungle.
BTW, my kids have a plan for me. They're going to set me up on an ice floe in the Arctic. They'll let me have a tv and a satelite dish and my computer
Margaret
Since she won't be assessed as needing nursing care, she won't qualify for grovernment assistance to pay for the help she will need to get around, my sister and I will have to provide that help - and how do you calculate that cost - or pay for someone else to do it out of our own pockets because Mom has limited funds. Whether we do it ourselves, or pay someone else to do it, the emotional drain on us and Mom is going to be tremendous. We know what it was like before this latest (not the first) break and now we will need to be even more vigilant.
We along with one of our 4 other siblings have decided to bear the cost of placing Mom in a retirement community with full services - one of those too good to be true ones you see advertised on tv - we think she'll be happy there and when we visit, we can visit and not be worried about what needs to be done.
The cost of this placement is about equal to what it was costing us to keep her in her city-subsidized apartment, but we won't have the worry so it's a no-brainer for us. Our other siblings have different opinions and that's become a problem, but they'll just have to get over it.
So, I started out talking about hidden costs of health care.
We are not alone. In talking to the manager of this facility, we discovered that most of the residents are having their costs underwritten by their children!
I'm living off the pension money that I worked hard to accumulate and now I'm paying out some of that money to care for my aged mother. In addition to paying out the money, I'm spending time caring for her - time that I could potentially be working and earning more money, so in effect, I'm spending the money twice + plus the interest - somebody do the math, my head hurts.
I won't have money to pay for this nice place to live when I'm tired of cooking and cleaning for myself.
So maybe the Amereekans have the right idea after all. Only the fit will survive into old age. Only the rich will survive into old age. The rest, lacking adequate health care will have died off.
Just like in the jungle.
BTW, my kids have a plan for me. They're going to set me up on an ice floe in the Arctic. They'll let me have a tv and a satelite dish and my computer
Margaret