40% of Americans Believe Medicare Will Pay for LTC
Nearly 40% of middle-class Americans said they plan to use Medicare to cover their future long-term care expenses – even though Medicare doesn’t cover LTC. In addition, nearly a quarter of Americans haven’t even considered how they will pay for LTC, meaning that more than 60% of Americans are financially unprepared for health challenges as they age.
The cost of future care – and how consumers will pay for it – is a subject that the life insurance industry must address in two ways, David Chavern, ACLI president and CEO, told InsuranceNewsNet.
“One, we have to talk about it,” he said. “Two, the life insurance industry is interesting in that we sell products to help people deal with the scariest things in their life, savings products for retirement and long-term care, and we must do a better job of explaining what long-term care products are out there, and all the benefits they have.”
The survey also found that middle-class households are most concerned about affording daily essentials (46%), healthcare services (40%) and transportation (36%) over the next year. Concerns about the affordability of transportation costs rose substantially over the past year (from 26% to 36%).
Concerns around the affordability of healthcare increase significantly with age, but the biggest gap is between Generation Z and millennial households: slightly more than a quarter of Gen Z is concerned about healthcare costs, compared to nearly two-fifths of millennials.