Some of Us Will Live Too Long

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Sometimes a patient simply cannot remain at home unless the home has someone who can provide 24 hour nursing care. I recall an aunt who lived in a nursing home in a semi comatose condition for six years before she died. It all gets very expensive. Medicare does not cover nursing homes. Medicaid might, but only after the patient has spent all his or her assets and sold their home. Even then, Medicaid may place a lien on any possible estate.
 
There’s something very wrong with that picture – that a person has to go bankrupt and liquidate everything he or she has worked for all of his or her lifetime just to be taken care of in old age. Something needs to change, there.
 
JanR said:
Just make sure the financial advisor is fiduciary, meaning he or she is legally obligated to work in the client’s best interests, and that he or she is fee based instead of commission based.
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Even better, learn how to manage money yourself! It’s best not to feed the thieves who take way too much of your money telling you they can do better. Learn to do it yourselves, it’s not that hard!
 
That’s a good point. Even an ethical financial advisor is going to take a percentage of your assets each year.
I believe it was Jack Bogle who maintained that over the long term, an indexed portfolio was equal to an actively managed portfolio, but without the fees.
 
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You might just want to copy and paste it there and delete this post here.
 
See the 3 dots at the bottom right of your post? Click that, then the trash can.
 
My wife and I saved aggressively and learned to invest on our own. It’s not that hard. I expect we’ve saved tens of thousands in fees over the years. We don’t buy risky companies and like dividends. We had an opportunity to buy long term care insurance through my employer and jumped on it. The cost is much more reasonable than if we had to buy it today.
 
My step-grandfather inherited $400 when his mother died. It was during the Great Depression, and he used that money to purchase shares of stock in several companies that had been good and solid prior to the crash, and that he was confident would survive and come back profitably later on. Everyone thought he was crazy. “You’ll lose your shirt!” they exclaimed. He was right. All of those companies came roaring back in better times, and he and Grandma became very wealthy, due to that and other wise financial decisions they made over the years.
 
Fair enough, I’ll try to stick to the article as briefly, and unbiased as possible.

”If you retire at age 65, can you live for 30 years on savings alone? Probably, not! There are expenses you cannot imagine." - Steven Mussey MD, [Some of us will live too long]

So in 2050 there will be tens, if not hundreds of thousands baby boomers, dying in their kids bankrupt homes (“It can be a catastrophe for the families tasked with such care.”), or worse, homeless, wandering the streets, praying for death.

Sorry but I don’t buy these dire predictions anymore. (Ever-increasing dire predictions!)
He knows all about 2050 but can’t explain why the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s + dark predictions never came to pass.

Humans are incredibly adapt at rising to meet and overcome problems. It’s what we do.

It’s a fact he likes to overlook.

We live in the greatest time in history, but it’s just not enough.
 
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Demographically, at least in the US, the population is aging, and fewer babies are being born. By mid-century, the population is expected to begin to decline while the aging cohort becomes more expensive in their care. Fewer young people and fewer workers may put new burdens on pension systems and social support systems. For a hundred years or more an indexed stock portfolio could be expected to show a steady increase even as prices were volatile on a daily basis. Will that growth continue in an economy with aging population and fewer workers coming onboard? I don’t know, but I won’t be around long enough to see how the new trendline works out.
 
Here’s the thing.
In the olden days, people would live their life, if they survived to old age, would generally rock along fairly status quo, then suffer some catastrophic medical event, linger a few months, then die.

Nowadays, we can and do bring people back from the brink, but often at a serious level of disability that lingers for years. And the disability may not be obvious to the observer—it could be a cognitive decline. It could be something where the person is relatively comfortable, but maybe wheelchair bound but saps their energy so they couldn’t possibly hold down a job or manage a home (which I suspect caused Pope Benedict XVI to resign).
I take care of a lot of people like this in the nursing home where I work. These people need care. Without somebody looking over their food intake and general health status, they would die in relatively short order. But with not having to worry about bills and heating and home repair and buy food, etc, they live fairly comfortably, to the extent their energy level will allow.
 
I do too. I am tired of people, including family members, telling me “ eww, not me! Why would you want to be that old and sick?” I always answer that I never said I wanted to be sick, I said I want to live to be 100. Not every older person is frail. For my age right now, I am in excellent health, and I hope to keep it that way by the choices I make now.
 
My nonna lived to be 103. She was fairly healthy until her last year when she had a stroke.

She outlived all her siblings, her stepson, a number of nieces and nephews. widowed twice, and she and my dad (her son) died only 6 years apart. He was 63.

I enjoyed my Nonna. She was lucid up until she had her stroke.

I don’t know if I want to live that long. But if I do I’d like to be fairly healthy and not much of a burden on anyone.
 
Aww, may she Rest In Peace. I think part of why I would want to live that long is because I don’t want to miss anything with my family. And another is that I have so many creative projects I want to do, it will take me that long to get to all of them, haha!
 
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