What do you all think?

You are correct in that we elevated her desire to a right.

Honour thy father and thy mother...

HankD

 

Many retirement homes have a quota of medicare people that they will accept. I've enen heard of home making people leave when they can no longer pay their bills (all their money is gone) and they go on medicare. My mother took out long term care insurance 10 years ago. She's always been one to prepare for the future. Now, she not only gets all of her bills paid for the rest of her life (she's 89 God bless her) but she gets money back from the insurance company because her nursing home charges less than the insurance pays.

This is like any other medical situation. Either you have insurance or you take your chances. Most nursing homes are run on a for profit basis. They're looking to get paid for their services just like the grocery. I haven't heard a great deal of support for government supported medicine or retirement home care on this board. Most would probably call it "socialistic." If you want to go by the free market system then the nursing home has a right to collect its money.

 

Medicare has certain rules about when, how much, and how long medicare will pay for people in nursing homes. I don't know if this varies by state because it is a federal program.

Usually, Medicare will pay up to, I believe it is 90 days after a person has been dismissed from the hospital and needs extended care. This may have changed as I have not researched this recently.

I think that it is true that nursing homes only have so many rooms that are medicare approved.

After the specified time that medicare pays a patient will have to pay by private pay or by state assisted funds called medicaid in some states.

I see nothing wrong with people receiving state assisted funds after they have exhausted their own funds. This is especially true if they still have a living spouse that needs support.