By 2020, 12 million older Americans will need long-term care, according to the federal government.
The question is, who is going to pay for it?
That is what Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform in Seattle, wants people to begin thinking about.
As part of a yearlong national tour to raise awareness about the issue, Moses will be in Prescott Monday speaking from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Prescott Adult Center, 1280 E. Rosser St.
Autumn Solutions Long-Term Care Insurance Specialists and the Yavapai County Coalition of Care for the Aging are sponsoring the free public event.
Patricia Spencer, president of Autumn Solutions, says the old way of thinking about long-term care - that the government will take care of you and pay your expenses - must end, especially now that the baby boomer generation is aging.
"It's a paradigm shift," Spencer said. "There just isn't enough money to go around."
Time was, America did not have as many people and they did not live as long, so the amount of government assistance they needed was not as much as it is now.
"The 20th century added 30 years to our lifespan," Spencer said.
According to the federal government, by 2020, 12 million older Americans will need long-term care. In 2007, that number was 9 million.
People who reach the age of 65 will have a 40 percent chance of entering a nursing home and 10 percent of those people will stay there five or more years, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicare website.
In a telephone interview, Moses warned that elder law attorneys are helping middle-class and affluent people find legal loopholes so they can get on Medicaid when they need long-term care. He calls it "artificial impoverishment."
Medicaid is a state and federal government program generally meant to act as a safety net for poor people who need medical or long-term care. Currently it spends about 40 percent of its budget on long-term care and pays for two-thirds of all nursing home residents in the country.
Because so many people whom the government did not mean to help are now getting help, there soon will not be any money left in the system, he said.
"My message to the public is that when it comes to long-term care, you've got to be thinking 10 to 15 years ahead," he added.
For information about long-term care, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website at www.medicare.gov/longtermcare/static/home.asp.
