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“Scott Adams has a solution for male loneliness: get an AI girlfriend.:”
Will AI show men they need a woman like a bicycle needs a fish?
A modern man asks the age-old question: “Siri, Why are my relationships with women so difficult?”
And the age-old answer from primitive AI: “I’m not Siri. I’m Alexa.”
Thanks for the article on long term care insurance. As the author points out, the premiums for a 55 year old are often under $200 a month, which is what some people are paying for football tickets….i.e., not a burden.
The problem is that so few persons really consider the insurance until age 65, when they have a health scare, and when premiums are much higher.
Plus the carriers are very picky about who they will accept in terms of health conditions. Plus there are certainly no level premiums, to put it mildly.
About 40 years ago, the idea of adding long-term care to Medicare was brought up by Rep. Claude Pepper and others. I remember the insurance industry speaking out forcefully that the private sector could handle this.
Well the private sector has totally failed in this area. Score one for Bernie Sanders, I am afraid.
Bob, I don’t understand what you are trying to say about Long Term Care.
You conclude by saying “the private sector has totally failed in this area”
But earlier you say “the premiums for a 55 year old are often under $200 a month, which is what some people are paying for football tickets….i.e., not a burden.”
So what are you describing? A total failure? Not a burden? Something else?
Please explain.
Good points, John.
The private insurance products are affordable, if the citizen buys them early enough and is in good health when they want to buy.
That is true of a lot of private insurance that I sold during my working years. Life insurance is cheap if you are young and healthy, disability insurance also.
This limitation does not mean these products are bad. It does mean that you will not get universal coverage unless the government is involved.
Thanks Bob. But I disagree universal coverage of Long Term Care insurance is either necessary or desireable.
The main reason to purchase LTC is to protect one’s assets. It does this by helping one to pay for custodial care for, potentially, many years. In that sense, LTC is different from medical insurance.
People with substantial assets should buy LTC. The price is not an obstacle for them, as you pointed out.
People without substantial assets spend down to qualify for Medicaid long term care coverage. (According to Statista, custodial spending accounts for about 20% of all Medicaid expenditures.) So the federales are already deeply involved in paying for custodial care for people who cannot otherwise afford it. Providing government insurance coverage to a wider population that can afford private LTC coverage seems to me a misuse of tax money.
Of course there are people whose assets are neither substantial nor insubstantial, and who face a more difficult decision whether to buy LTC. Even for them, as you’ve pointed out, the cost of a private LTC policy if purchased before age 55 is usually not a burden. Seems to me these people need to learn about LTC before they become old. That suggests a need for outreach, not some new, universal, government-funded insurance scheme. Private insurers already have incentive and capacity to do the outreach – they probably call it marketing.
I understand your position about needing government involvement in universal LTC. I’m just not convinced.
(PS – I was a licensed agent in New York, never sold LTC though).
Most people that I know would define “getting old” as turning 75. I used to get a lot of calls from 75 year olds who suddenly got interested in LTC insurance. At age 55, they were shopping for a new motorcycle.
We may have to limp along with the government supporting those persons who could plan ahead, but do not. Social Security provides a form of life insurance for parents who die young, along with a form of disability insurance, plus of course the enormous monthly income benefit for all seniors, whether they save or not.
Amongst my own relatives, those who went through the Great Depression became devoted savers. Those who grew up in the 1950’s like me were spendthrifts for the most part.