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Remarks have been made that Soc. Sec. benefits should not be raised for caregivers, that are not based on their own contributions to their accounts. But this ignores the huge amount of money that they saved the government, by keeping family members at home, instead of sending them into nursing care facilities, funded by Medicaid.
If someone cared for two parents at home for 10 years, the savings to Medicaid could be close to 1 million dollars. If a fair, equivalent increase in Soc. Sec. credits were given to these caregivers for that unpaid time of service, the increased amount of benefits they might receive would be only a tiny fraction of that. If this encouraged more people to care for family members at home, it would produce a winning result for all concerned (except maybe for the stockholders of nursing homes).
Last edited by Steve McDonald; 09-23-2016 at 12:10 PM..
Remarks have been made that Soc. Sec. benefits should not be raised for caregivers, that are not based on their own contributions to their accounts. But this ignores the huge amount of money that they saved the government, by keeping family members at home, instead of sending them into nursing care facilities, funded by Medicaid.
If someone cared for two parents at home for 10 years, the savings to Medicaid could be close to 1 million dollars. If a fair, equivalent increase in Soc. Sec. credits were given to these caregivers for that unpaid time of service, the increased amount of benefits they might receive would be only a tiny fraction of that. If this encouraged more people to care for family members at home, it would produce a winning result for all concerned (except maybe for the stockholders of nursing homes).
I think there's some point for compromise. But where that rests, who knows.
Because most people who care for their loved ones, do it "informally". Not registering with an agency, not with any oversight.
So, that begs the question - what *level*/*quality* of care would count for credits?
If you take your mom to get groceries once a month, but otherwise she lives independently away from you - are you a caregiver? Do you get those credits?
If you live with your parent, and are the only one responsible for their care, but they qualify for medicaid and could be in a SNF - and you provide them substandard (substandard to a SNF) care - do you qualify?
There would have to be a huge amount of regulations around this. And most people seem to *hate* regulations.
Not everyone who cares for a loved one is a saint. Some people keep their loved one's out of SNF because they're basically living on the elderly person's SS and living in their house and providing very little or very poor care.
Some people are of course saints and selflessly provide their loved one's with exceptional care including dipping into their own finances.
Would both qualify?
I'm not saying one should or shouldn't, but it's a lot more complicated than just saying "give caregivers credit". You'd probably have to rigidly define caregiving, you'd probably have to register caregivers - and that's all at a minimum. And with Congresses refusal to pass/authorize anything, the agency that would likely need to be created to control/oversee unpaid home caregivers - would likely never get funded.
I truly do feel sorry for many people who are are in financial and/or emotional straits because they have been "forced" into a caregiver role, but I think that the main -- or at least, a big part of the -- problem is that the U.S. government and many of its residents feel that everyone has a right to premium care, even if they can't pay for it and have never paid very much in the way of taxes and/or insurance.
I admit that I am not a very compassionate person, but I just fail to see why we are supporting or supplementing people who are in this country illegally and why we continue to insist that someone with ZERO quality of life (for example, someone in a persistent vegetative state or a 90-year-old who has advanced Alzheimer's) should be kept alive. I also don't understand why anyone would feel obligated to care for an elderly relative, when it was due to that older relative's poor choices that they need to rely on a younger person to care for them in their old age. Why should people who have never "paid their own way" -- assuming they could, of course, and did not have some kind of major disability -- have the same benefits as those who did, like my parents?
My parents were of the generation who bought only what they could afford, with their outgo only rarely exceeding their income (and then only when it was some kind of emergency). My dad was "blue collar" and never made much money, but he did leave a large life insurance policy for my mom when he died 27 years ago. My mother is now 84, and she still has not touched any of that money because she worked for 25 years before she retired, and after she retired, she kept busy and continued to live in a healthy way -- and the same can be said of my grandparents before they died. None of them spent more than a couple of months in a nursing home, and all of them had savings in the bank when they died.
Yes, bad things sometimes do happen to good people, but in many cases, I think that bad things are a result of very bad choices, and I don't think that the people who made good choices should be forced to pay for those who did not, although I also think that young children should never go hungry or be denied basic or life-saving medical care. (I have never believed that young children should be forced to pay for the mistakes of their parents.)
In short, my opinion is that people who think that they are entitled to having the kind of care as anyone else, whether they have earned it or not, are just wrong. (Again, with the exception of young children.)
Last edited by katharsis; 09-26-2016 at 12:27 PM..
3. Caregiving has moved from being a nursing-related profession into something that families are now expected to provide.
Does anyone remember being a kid and on Sundays the family traipsed over to the nursing home to see Grandpa? Now, only 22 percent of people being cared for live in an assisted-living center, nursing home or other living community.
After visiting some nursing homes, we won’t attempt to convince anyone that they are sterling places that will give our loved one impeccable care. But those services they those nurses and nurses aides provide? They now fall to largely untrained family caregivers ― most of whom had already full lives when the decision was made that they would become caregivers.
Family caregivers save the nation $500 billion a year.
They were so horrifying. I would never leave my Dad in a place like that.
Of course it would never be necessary to quit working to care for him. He has spent his entire life helping other people. If he needed care, there would be people lined up for a chance to pay him back for his lifetime of service. He is an example of a true Christian. His primary goal in life has always been to help others every chance he got. It is unlikely there is a family in our home town that he has not helped someone related to them at some time. He will never ask for help, but if he becme debilitated, he has banked millions in goodwill. A nH will never be in his future. Might be a good lesson there.
They were so horrifying. I would never leave my Dad in a place like that.
Of course it would never be necessary to quit working to care for him. He has spent his entire life helping other people. If he needed care, there would be people lined up for a chance to pay him back for his lifetime of service. He is an example of a true Christian. His primary goal in life has always been to help others every chance he got. It is unlikely there is a family in our home town that he has not helped someone related to them at some time. He will never ask for help, but if he becme debilitated, he has banked millions in goodwill. A nH will never be in his future. Might be a good lesson there.
A nursing home can be a lonely place for a mind, even one that has dementia. Most of the residents aren't in any shape to engage their neighbors in any kind of conversation. I just got back from the doctors with my mom. We just changed doctors since her prior doctor retired from private practice. The new doctor spent about 30 minutes engaging my mom in conversation whereas the previous doctor never had any time. The great thing was that she's been much more vocal for the following two hours on other errands and the drive home than she has in many months.
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