It’s a mixed message for sure, but one to which we need to pay careful attention. In a new study out of the Center For Retirement Research at Boston College, experts found that the percentage of older adults needing long-term care services is a more nuanced picture than the media typically promotes. While it’s estimated that 25% of current 65-year-olds will develop severe health needs requiring significant caregiving help over several years, 17% will essentially require no help and 22% will have only minimal need for assistance (with the last group, 38%, requiring moderate levels of assistance (1-3 years), often following a short term illness and recovery). Which bucket you will fall into often depends upon such factors as your level of education, your race, your marital status, and your health status in your late 60s. To find out more, click here.

That will come as good news to a select few, given that a significant portion of the population has neither saved money in preparation for long-term care needs nor has the personal wealth to bankroll such assistance. As was recently stated in a New York Times Op-Ed addressing the high cost of long-term care, “Growing old is an increasingly expensive privilege often requiring supports and services that, whether provided at home or in a facility, can overwhelm all but the wealthiest seniors.” Given the real uncertainty, then, regarding whether and how much care you will need, how do you think about paying for such care?  We should recognize that Medicare will not pay for the majority of long-term care costs, and Medicaid has income and asset requirements that limit who can gain access to its long-term care benefit. CNBC recently summarized the very limited options for paying for long term care, which includes self-pay (for only the wealthiest among us), long term care insurance (which has become too costly for many consumers, leading to fewer policies even available), or a hybrid policy, combining life insurance with long-term care insurance (which has its own problems and limitations).

That of course leaves many of us in trouble, especially those in the middle-income bracket who may have saved some money (but not nearly enough), to cover the ever-increasing costs of both medical and non-medical long-term care. Most of us will have large out-of-pocket expenses to pay for medical care, despite having Medicare coverage, and inevitably, many of us will turn to family members, who out of either a sense of responsibility, guilt, or the goodness of their hearts step in to provide whatever assistance that they can. But that assistance comes at a cost, to both individuals and society at large. For the over 40 million Americans currently providing “free” care for their loved ones over 50, there is inevitably physical and financial stress for providing such care, a stress often hidden and insufficiently acknowledged. As a recent, comprehensive article in Vox makes clear, “The needs of society have changed dramatically but social policy created to address those needs remains mired in a previous reality.” We’re clearly in a crisis situation, with little likelihood of effective policy solutions in our immediate future. What to do then? As the data makes clear, not all of us are destined to need much costly long-term care, so say your prayers, stay as healthy as you can, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, that’s not much of a solution to a crisis that will affect almost all of us.