Governmental Long Term Care

The government provides help when paying for long term care to those individuals that meet requirements. Many people cannot afford to save for their future long term care or to buy expensive insurance policies. These people are offered alternatives by the government.

Veterans

Veterans and their spouses are rewarded by the Veteran’s Administration (VA) for their service to America in the form of long term health care financial assistance. The VA focuses their help on veterans who have disabilities as a result of their service, veterans who were prisoners of war, or veterans who have a low income. The VA typically provides nursing home care but in some cases, they will assist with respite care or adult day care.

Medicaid

This joint federal and state venture provides long term care to elderly individuals who are in need. Each state is given the freedom to pay for various types of long term care as decided by the individual state. However, the most common form of care provided is nursing home care. The state finances this program by recovering lost expenses from the elderly person’s estate.

Medicare

This program will not pay for long term care but will pay for short stints in nursing homes. These short term stays in nursing homes occur most often after hospitalization. Medicare will pay for some medical devices that are needed by elders to maintain their daily lifestyle and will also provide for in home health aid when skilled nursing or home therapy is necessary.

National Council on Aging

This organization provides an online screening service called BenefitsCheckUp so that elderly individuals aged 55 and over can determine what type of benefits they are entitled to. The online program contains information about approximately 1,300 programs with each state having 50 to 70 programs individually. The online service provides information about the programs, contact information, as well as material needed to apply for the programs. The program was in designed to help seniors learn about programs that are available to help but are not well known or publicized. The National Council on Aging has been in operation as a non-profit organization since 1950 and has been part of other programs such as Meals-on-Wheels and Foster Grandparents in their attempt to help America’s elderly population.