Long-term care: How to pay for the last years
By WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune
January 23, 2008
After watching their mom's assisted-living costs soar to $70,000 a year as her dementia deepened, sisters Janet Sullivan and Lisa Richardson decided this month to buy long-term care insurance policies for themselves.
"We have kind of a social responsibility to do what we can to prepare for our future -- to go on public assistance for our own care only as a last resort," said Sullivan, 50, of Wayzata. "If we're not going to overburden the next generation, we have to start planning now."
Without fanfare, the state this month has quietly launched an effort to entice more Minnesotans to buy private long-term care insurance.
Called the Long-Term Care Partnership -- now approved in 16 states -- the program is aimed largely at helping baby boomers avoid catastrophic costs of nursing homes or assisted living.
