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How much does a nursing home cost?
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Whether it’s someone to help with household tasks or an occupational therapist, many people will need help when they get older. In some cases, older people need to move into a nursing home or assisted living facility so that they can be surrounded by professional care at all times.
One major issue for a lot of American families is that these facilities are prohibitively expensive. As such, it’s important to know exactly how much a nursing home will cost — and what you can do now, when you’re still working, to help defray those costs later in life.
Start shopping for a long-term care insurance policy online today.
How much does a nursing home cost?
When considering how much a nursing home will cost, it’s important to consider a few factors, like your location and whether you want to have a completely private room when you move into your new home.
Nursing home costs vary by state and type of service
The cost you’ll pay for a room in a nursing home will vary greatly based on where you live and what type of service you want. According to Genworth’s 2021 Cost of Care Study — the most recent numbers available — the national average for a private room in a nursing home was $108,405 per year. For a semi-private room, you’d pay $94,900 per year. If you don’t need all the services of a nursing home but still want to live in a place where you can get help, the average annual cost of an assisted living facility was $54,000.
Let’s look at a few examples to show how location matters. In New York State, the average cost of a private room was $158,797 per year in 2021. In Texas, it was $85,107, while in Arizona a year in a nursing home cost $96,360.
This disparity also goes down to the municipal level. In the New York City area, the average cost of a year in a private nursing home room was $158,775, while in the Utica area it was $125,925 per year as of 2021.
Prepare for the costs of nursing homes by buying long-term care insurance now.
Long-term care insurance can help
Those numbers likely leave many people wondering how exactly they will pay for these services if they need them later in life, as Medicare generally won’t cover nursing homes. Luckily, there is something you can do now to offset the costs of care later in your life: purchase a long-term care insurance policy.
Long-term care insurance works much like any other insurance policy. You enter a contract with an insurance company and make premium payments now in exchange for money later if you need it. With long-term care insurance, you get money to pay for long-term care services like nursing homes.
Exactly how much money you’ll get for long-term care services will depend on the policy you choose. There are also many types of long-term care policies to choose from. For instance, you could pick a hybrid policy that combines long-term care insurance with life insurance. In this case, you would get benefits to pay for long-term care and a death benefit paid to your family on your death. This can be helpful if you are concerned that funeral and estate costs will be a burden for your family.
Long-term care insurance can cover nursing homes and many other services, including adult day care services, respite care, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing care and occupational therapy. Some even allow you to pay family members who are helping to take care of you.
The bottom line
Nursing homes, like most medical services in America, are expensive. Depending on where you live, you could end up paying more than $100,000 per year for nursing home care, which will be out of the price range for many people. There is something you can do right now, though, to prepare — find and purchase a long-term care insurance plan. Paying premiums now will give you money to use for long-term care later in life, potentially saving you much angst in your later years.
The Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform, approved by its platform committee and released Monday, is influenced heavily by presumptive presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, and in a change from prior years, it backs the rights of states to make their own abortion laws.
The 2016 RNC platform mentioned the word “abortion” 35 times and backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion: “[W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the RNC’s 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
The Republican Party did not release a platform in 2020. And the 2024 platform only mentions the word once.
“We proudly stand for families and life,” the 2024 platform says. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process,” but it goes on to say, “the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”
The platform has been initially approved by the RNC committee, but is expected to go to a full vote Tuesday and be officially approved the first day of the Republican National Convention next week.
It also goes on to express opposition to late-term abortion and support for “policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom coalition, previously expressed concerns about removing abortion language, but he appeared to fall in line and back the GOP platform as released.
“The Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment,” Reed said in a statement. “That language has been in the GOP platform for 40 years and reflects the view of Ronald Reagan. While aspirational, it applies to both the states and the federal government. The proposed ban on late-term abortion also implies federal as well as state action. It is an unapologetically pro-life position, and we are grateful to President Trump and the Republican Party for standing for life.”
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-chair Lara Trump focused on the economy and the border in their statement on the platform.
“Only President Trump can restore our economy, restore our southern border, and restore America’s standing in the world,” the two RNC leaders said in a joint statement. “His 2024 Republican Party Platform is a bold roadmap that will undo the devastating damage that Joe Biden’s far-left policies have done to this country, power President Trump to a historic victory in November, and Make America Great Again.”
The platform is titled, “2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again!” It bears clear signs of the former president’s influence, emphasizing enforcing border security and stopping the “migrant crime epidemic.” The platform includes a goal to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
The platform also proposes building a “great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country.”
Trump and his campaign have also adopted a new proposal in recent months — eliminating taxes on tips. Trump mentions it frequently at rallies, and it appears in the RNC 2024 platform, along with a promise to end inflation, which has been easing.
The GOP also states in the platform that there will be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare and no changes to the retirement age. It also says that the push for electric vehicles should be canceled and regulations should be cut. And it calls for “same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship” as means to “secure our elections.”
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