Shock: 80% of our Medicaid tax dollars go to paying for long term care.

I just read an article that appeared in the Green Bay Press Gazette on how state long term care insurance partnership plans will actually save the states millions.  We’ve been telling our clients this since the plans really began to take hold 2 years ago that the state would not offer this long term care partnership protection if it was not going to save them money.  Kudos for the states in coming up with this innovative plan that will save tax payer dollars.  As we’ve seen through the financial meltdown, the way our government has spent and is spending our tax dollars is simply not sustainable.  People who do take personal responsibility for themselves rather than depending on the government to take care of their health care needs should be rewarded. This added incentive has and will continue to shift the huge Medicaid burden off the tax payer to individuals who are being financially responsible by paying premiums and to the insurance companies who will pay the long term care claims as they happen.   

If we as a country can learn one thing from this past financial tsunami it’s simply live within our means and do not spend money that we don’t have.  For many people it feels good to buy things and often it’s a form compensation for the insecurities in their lives—we all do this to some degree and in small doses it can have its positive effect.  However, there are millions of people in our country who have gone wild with credit and are wasting their future potential earnings on the now for instant gratification.  These future earning will be necessary for the person to be self-sufficient.  If they spend too much of their future earnings now on things like granite countertops, flat screen TV’s in every room, buying a new car just to have a new car, vacations, etc. they will not have the money to pay their way and thus things like Medicaid (our tax dollars) will have to fit the bill. 

If this wreck less spending continues our tax dollars that should be spent of defense, science, and education will be spent indirectly on iPods, designer jeans, vacations—all the wasteful items people thoughtlessly put on their credit cards now and thought they would never have to pay it back.  Maybe they won’t have to directly pay their credit card debt back, but they will in higher taxes.  This huge tax debt will be one nasty hangover as a result of this out of control binge.  I’m certainly not saying those items are terrible and I’m some kind of minimalist, it’s when people who don’t have the money in the first place waste their resources on those unnecessary goods as opposed to planning and providing for their current and future basic needs such as food, shelter, and in this case medical care.  What percentage of people that we see on the drama news network CNN, who promotes the fact that 45 million people don’t have health insurance, truly can’t afford it?  I bet it’s tiny, these people have chosen to put their wants before their needs.  Yes, things such their cell phones, eating out at restaurants, cigarettes (How many of them are smokers?), weekend vacations just because it feels good, a closet full of shoes and clothes that go unworn are wants and should be bought only after they buy health insurance. 

No one likes to buy insurance, but it’s the financially responsible thing to do.  Health insurance is a must even if you have to give up your cell phone and cable TV.  Then, if you have worked hard to build up a nest egg go ahead a take advantage of the long term care partnership programs that have popped up in most of the states and buy long term care insurance .  This planning will protect your nest egg which had the added benefit of helping our country begin the long climb to getting our country out of this abyss of debt.  This selfless action will help protect your family’s financial future and ensure that our children and our children’s children have the same opportunity that we and all who have come before us have had.  I know this blog may have been a bit politically charge this morning, but these are tough and serious issues we are facing.  To solve the problem you got to talk about the uncomfortable issues and shine the light on the actual problem.  Thanks for reading our blog…we really appreciate it.