Identification

• Medicare covers hospital stays and doctor visits, but only a portion of home care stays under certain conditions. Medicaid is the payer of last resort in cases when patients are in nursing homes. In some states, Medicaid can garner personal assets to pay for a nursing home stay. Long-term care insurance prevents scenarios like these from occurring.
  
  

Benefits

• The costs of senior community programs and assisted living facilities may be covered in a long-term care plan. Plans of this nature are particularly important for seniors who want to maintain their independence. After a surgical procedure, there may be a need for physical therapy or just additional assistance with bathing and feeding. Long-term care insurance allows for a home health agency to come into a patient's home, eliminating the need to be placed into a facility for care. This helps to maintain quality of life, and care is cheaper.
  
  

Time Frame

• Policies can range in coverage. The span of coverage may be a few years, or a policy can cover the beneficiary for life. The length of coverage will also affect the price. The price will also be affected by the waiting period. Some policies only take effect after the beneficiary has been in a facility or receiving post-acute care for up to 100 days. Other plans will go into effect the moment the beneficiary begins to receive care. The beneficiary will have to decide which plan is best.
  
  

Features

• Initially, commercial insurance companies only offered long-term care insurance. Those who could not afford the higher premiums of commercial insurance companies were not able to acquire coverage for long-term care. In recent years, the federal government has gone into the long-term care insurance business. In most cases, the beneficiary pays a nominal fee for basic coverage. Severe conditions do not have to exist in order for seniors to be eligible.
  
  

Theories/Speculation

• Consumers have lobbied their government officials for universal health care in recent years. Many elected officials have promised to include a plan that covers all Americans, even in cases with pre-existing conditions. This could alter the make-up and disbursement of future long-term health care plans.