When I was in high school, the movie Meatballs came out.  It starred Bill Murray as the head camp counselor at a low budget camp.  As you would expect, it was a “chaos” comedy with lots of innuendos and stupid humor aimed at teenagers. 

My whole point for mentioning this movie is the chant “it just doesn’t matter; it just doesn’t matter; it just doesn’t matter …”

In the movie, it was the rally cry for the camp during a “camp Olympics” which they lost year after year (much like the New York Jets who haven’t appeared in a Super Bowl since 1969). 

What does all this have to do with long-term care?

That’s a fair question.  Simply, someone’s need for long-term care support and services is not significantly impacted by gender, income, or marital status.  I came across this when I was reading the ACLI “LTC Insurance Guide” who data shared from Medicareguide.com

It just doesn’t matter.  No one knows who might need care, how long it might be required, what type of services or support will be needed, where it will take place, etc.  No one really knows.  All we have is a set of statistics to work with and that data says that the cost of care is not inexpensive.  If you want to see the cost of various levels of care around the country, you can do that using the OneAmerica Financial interactive cost-of-care map.

According to the data at Medicareguide.com, overall there is a 43.8% chance that you won’t need care in any form.  If you are a man, that is 49% – a woman is 38%.  This is the biggest “spread” in the data sampling for who will require care. 

When you compare it my income, there is only a 7% variance between someone in the lowest income bracket and someone in the highest income bracket AND they are both under 47%.

Source: https://medicareguide.com/how-much-long-term-care-will-you-need-359712

It just doesn’t matter who you are.  If you draw the wrong cards, you will be the one!

So, with this in mind, I’d like you to consider the scenarios.  And remember these words – it is better to have a plan and not need it than to need a plan and not have it.

At worst, develop a plan … at best, implement a funded plan.

Contact my internal sales partner Kelley Hilliard at (844) 623-4251 or via email at kelleyhilliard.isp@oneamerica.com for your copy of the Step by Step Guide to Long Term Care along along with the Care Planning Worksheet.