A Good Enough Daughter
As a professional in the field of aging, Sara had seen it all—until her own mother broke her hip at the age of 88 and became profoundly confused, unable to live in her own home. Join Sara on her journey through the strangeness that is dementia while trying to make sense of it all and finding humor in the details. [Editor's note: Sara no longer contributes to Silver Planet, but we have made her archived blog entries available as a service to our readers.]
What Will Happen When the Money Runs Out?
Cordelia Robertson, age 99, was recently given an eviction notice from her assisted living facility in Seattle, after living there for a decade (“Assisted-living facility tries to evict 99-year-old woman on Medicaid,” Seattle Times, June 4, 2008). She had spent all the money she had, almost $400,000, to pay for her care. Out of money and eligible for Medicaid funding, Ms. Robertson had expected the assisted living company to honor the agreement she and her family thought was made to accept Medicaid funding when her money was exhausted.
Instead, Assisted Living Concepts (ALC), the sixth-largest assisted living company in the country, and a public company whose stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange, insisted that she move. What does it mean for you and for me when the law allows a company to kick out a 99-year-old woman from her home of 10 years, after having spent a life’s saving, because public funding is deemed inadequate?
I am by no means a “bleeding-heart liberal.” To the contrary, I was raised to be an old-fashioned Goldwater Republican (in full disclosure, I did vote for Obama). But in the case of long-term care, I think all those rhetoric-laden labels are irrelevant. Whether Ms. Robertson was a lifelong Democrat or Republican is beside the point, and that will be the case for all of us.
People live long lives these days, and the cost of long-term care is huge because the means of production are human beings, people who deserve a living wage. Before Ms. Robertson dies, the cost of her long-term care will amount to over a half-million dollars.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that as a society, we must grapple with the difficult question of how to pay for our aging. It will be expensive. We are a rich country. We have managed to find trillions of dollars for war and for Wall Street bailouts. It’s time to ask ourselves, how important is paying for quality long-term care? Most of us are going to need it.
What will happen to my mother when her money runs out? Ironically, I am expecting Gaffney House, the assisted living facility she lives in, to honor our agreement to convert her payment to Medicaid.
By Sara Myers
The Good Enough Daughter Blog
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