The Greatest Retirement Expense of All

Several thoughts here:

First of all, I guess we should be perhaps "glad" that Genworth has gone to doing surveys of facilities to promote their long-term care insurance instead of merely running those TV ads that featured healthy 100-year-olds. They were sweet old people for sure, but I came to notice that none of them seemed to ever clearly state in the ads that they had ever purchased any Genworth Financial old-age products. It was hard not to suspect they probably hadn't.. Full disclosure?

The "goal" for most of us, if possible, is to live through the ends of our lives without giving away our extended families' resources to either CORPORATIONS that sell care at $209 a day or to the "other" CORPORATIONS that sell insurance to buy that same care plus profit for the insurance company. That's because most of us are in families with resources best described as "limited" or "modest". Even AARP has reluctantly admitted in its magazine articles that L-T Care Insurance may not be either a good deal or even a feasible choice for many, many seniors.

Republicans (because of a pollster's opinion about words) have attempted to change the national debate about Gift and Estate Tax (something that is only applied to begin with, of course, to remaining wealth measured in millions) to a rant about "death tax"----as though the tax was on levied on dying rather than on the transfer of excess wealth to heirs.

The REAL death "tax" for MOST extended families, though, is going to be that extracted by corporations for overpriced "care" up to the moment of death, or for insurance against same, rather than a government tax. And as the numbers (and the "inflation" rates) in the above article suggest, the "tax" for many, many extended families is going to be at the rate of 100% or more of the elder-end assets.

There was never a time in America (except perhaps in the Great Depression) that we need liberals in government more than for the generational passing of the baby boom folks. This is because a massive wealth shift from middle class extended families to CORPORATIONS is set to occur otherwise, and, even at best, can only be mitigated somewhat by lawmakers. Get your Democrats for The White House and Congress and KEEP them there. Your kids are going to badly, badly, badly need them.

"CORPORATIONS"

These "corporations" that the prior writer is railing against are ones who pay the wages and payroll taxes that support our healthcare and so much more. By the way, who do you think owns these corporations? It's middle class Americans.

What is important is that people wake up to the reality of personal responsibility for themselves and stop trying to point fingers at the big bogeymen; corporations and republicans. We have a crisis of aging that is coming rapidly and the care that will be needed is only going to be there for those who prepare. Crying about who is at fault is not going to diminish the need to prepare. It's not just the USA, but most of the world that needs to deal with this problem. Some countries have approached this aging issue earlier than the US, and they are beginning to feel the problems that we are going to face if we don't get people to wake up and prepare. The oldest Boomers are only 62 now. We haven't even begun to hit the wall on this....but we will.

Time to stop complaining and go get a job from one of these CORPORATIONS.

There is nothing at all wrong with self-sufficiency, hard work and financial preparation----for those who CAN somehow sock away enough for retirement income, PLUS that extra quarter-million they now say that a couple, aged 65, needs for medical care over and above Medicare, PLUS $75,000 per year for each year of L-T Nursing Care needed by each spouse.

But for those who do not have those kinds of resources, most Americans as a matter of fact, there is something in the tone of the above post that sounds like "Let them eat cake" --a familiar theme from the corporate-loving Republicans.

I have a problem with an attorney, say, who is able to accomplish his own ample financial "preparation", aided in no small part by his paralegals and secretaries, who then somehow makes fun of them for not being as rich for retirement as he is---in some haughty post like above. I have a problem with "shareholders" too, who are willing to become wealthy from the efforts of employees, yet dismiss them and their families as being of lesser importance than the "capital".

Yeah, there is free enterprise and capitalism. It does not "trump" the notion that we are also to love, share and be our brother's keeper. Worshippers at the

Church of Corporate Divinity think otherwise, of course, and elections are where the diverging views are to meet balance. Liberal, you say? Yes.