Assisted Living and Long Term Care

Coopers & Lybrand , a major accounting firm based in Atlanta, calculates that as the elderly population doubles, and the cost of nursing homes triples; assisted living will continue to be one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the long term care industry. As a result of their popularity with residents, and their lower costs, assisted living facilities are becoming big business. Across the nation, some 10,000 assisted living developments have already been built as of 1994, creating housing for some 600,000 people, and generating a 7 billion dollar industry. In Wisconsin alone, the number of older adults living in assisted living has increased from 7,508 in 1990 to 16,988 in 1998.

This new option for older adults is expanding at a time when private and public resources for long term care are shrinking. There is a bipartisan consensus in Congress that Medicare, as currently funded and dispersed, will be out of money by early in the coming century. The high expense of nursing home care is beyond the reach of many, unless they deliberately make themselves poorer to qualify for Medicaid. Currently long-term care is the single largest line item in the Medicaid budget. Many industry professionals estimate that $2 billion to $5 billion dollars per year could be saved each year in Medicaid costs nationwide by moving people from nursing homes to residential assisted-living facilities. The cushion of services that baby boomer taxes provide today for their aging parents is in danger of swiftly eroding by the time those taxpayers reach the age of entitlement. At a time of diminishing personal, state, and federal resources, pressure is growing to find new solutions to the growing needs for long term care. Many believe assisted care may be one such solution.

Source: Rod Clark