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3 reasons long-term care insurance is better than paying out of pocket
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Long-term care is something that most older Americans will eventually need. And, considering the high cost of that care, it’s important to prepare for it ahead of time. Failing to do so could limit your options and put undue strain on your family and friends when you need care.
One way to address high long-term care costs is by purchasing a long-term care insurance policy, which can help cover costs for nursing homes, assisted living facilities and in-home caretakers. Another way is to save money to pay out of pocket when the need arises. Though choosing the latter may give you more control over your money, doing so could be a mistake. Below, we’ll break down why long-term care insurance may be preferable to paying out of pocket.
Compare your long-term care insurance options and lock in your coverage now.
3 reasons long-term care insurance is better than paying out of pocket
There are a few reasons long-term care insurance is better than paying out of pocket for your care, including:
Tax benefits expand your coverage
Qualified long-term care insurance policies come with tax benefits. Not only can you deduct your premiums (up to annual, age-based limits) on your tax return, you won’t pay taxes on inflation protection-related growth in the value of your policy or your benefits when you receive them. That can make a meaningful difference in the amount of money you have available to cover the cost of your long-term care when you need it.
Take advantage of the tax benefits of a long-term care insurance policy today.
You’re guaranteed long-term care support when you need it
It can be difficult to refrain from tapping into money you saved for one purpose when another financial need arises. And, if you intend on saving money to pay your long-term care expenses out of pocket, you may tap into that money from time to time.
On the other hand, if you purchase a long-term care insurance policy, you won’t be able to access your benefits until you have a qualifying long-term care need. As such, when that need arises, your benefits will be available (as long as you’ve paid your premiums), regardless of the financial needs that arise between now and then.
Long-term care insurance protects your family
Life happens, and when it does, it can be easy to get off track in terms of saving in and maintaining your long-term care fund. But, if that happens, and you don’t have insurance to fall back on, your family could pay the price.
“The risk of a long-term care event is not only financial,” explains Jeff Beligotti, vice president and head of long-term care solutions at insurance company New York Life. “Long-term care events can quickly deplete a retirement portfolio, result in burdensome caregiving responsibilities for your loved ones, including lost wages from taking time off work, and cause emotional distress.”
Even if you intend on aging at home and leaning on your family and friends for support, long-term care insurance makes sense. It can give your informal caregivers breaks and some policies will even make it possible to pay your family and friends for the care they provide.
The bottom line
At first glance, it can be difficult to decide whether it’s better to purchase long-term care insurance or to save money with a plan to pay for your care out of pocket. But as you dig into the details, the benefits of long-term care insurance become clearer.
Thanks to the tax advantages associated with a long-term care insurance policy, you could have access to more funds than if you had paid out pocket. Moreover, long-term care insurance guarantees your access to care when the need arises as long as you pay your premiums, and it can protect your loved ones. Chat with a long-term care insurance agent now about your options.
Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves made his professional auto racing debut on Saturday at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“The Matrix” star, who qualified 31st out of 35 cars, ran as high as 21st before a single-car crash a little more than halfway through the 45-minute race briefly stopped him in his tracks.
Darron Cummings / AP
The 60-year-old spun into the grass without a collision on the exit of Turn 9 when he had about 21 minutes of racing left. He re-entered the course and continued driving, signaling he was uninjured.
Reeves finished 25th.
The actor is competing at Indianapolis in the Toyota GR Cup, a Toyota spec-racing series and a support series for this weekend’s Indy 8 Hour sports car event. He has a second race on Sunday.
Darron Cummings / AP
He is driving the No. 92 BRZRKR car, which is promoting his graphic novel “The Book of Elsewhere.” He is teammates with Cody Jones from “Dude Perfect.”
Reeves has previous racing experience as a former participant in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in the celebrity race. Reeves won the event in 2009.
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
