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POOR HEALTH IN RETIREMENT:
Many people have poor health during their retirement years. This may extend for a long period, and it may mean a drastic change in living style.
CHANGE IN HOUSING
When illness hits one member of the retired couple hard, suddenly everything in life changes. Thinking about this and perhaps planning for it ahead of time may make the transitions easier.
One couple I know had a cottage on a lake, a house in the north and a home in FL. Suddenly, the wife was faced with putting her husband in an assisted living facility as a first move. Fortunately, they had filled in the swimming pool at their main residence, so that did not require any decisions to improve the salability of the house. Finding an assisted living facility was the first task which requires balancing nearness to desired location (don't want too much commuting during visits), quality of the facility and service, and cost. Another task is emptying three houses and selling them. This becomes a big undertaking for the wife who has plenty of other worries. The husbands illness was Alzheimer's.
Another couple involved a husband moving her wife to a nursing home. He moved to a nearby retirement complex. The wife had Alzheimer's
Another couple moved the husband to a nursing facility while she remained nearby in the home they had built. He steadily deteriorated mentally before dying 14 years later. Fourteen years in a nursing home was very expensive. Later she became incapacitated, but she was able to purchase round the clock care in her home where she wanted to remain until she died.
Nursing home facilities vary a lot in quality. No advice on selection. Living at hope with nursing care is expensive.
Cancer, heart problems, and Alzheimer's can be prolonged and expensive.
COST
Medicare will not cover all costs. I believe that I ran into problems last year on cost for my wife's operation and treatment due to Obamacare. Money has been siphoned out of Medicare for Obamacare, so that means that we will get less quality care from Medicare.
Supplementsal insurance is often limited by Medicare. The supplemental insurance company will not pay for something unless Medicare validates that it is an approved item. I have heard of people paying as much as $8,000 for 20 pills that are not covered by insurance or Medicare.
I have never tried to figure out all the insurance things. I did go through everything fifteen years ago, but it is complex, and there is a lot of information on coverage that is not clear -- especially what is not covered. Some of this can be found on the internet. For example, if you are going in for an operation, be sure that you quickly get off the list of admitted for observation. You might find that your coverage is greatly diminished. For example, you may find that your rehab treatment is not covered by insurance. If Medicare does not cover it, your insurance will not cover it. You may go back to the hospital to get them to change their records, but that is difficult -- actually probably impossible since it could raise fraud question if they changed it. At a time when you don't want to deal with it your are faced with some difficult decisions: Reduce care below level needed or pay for it yourself.
Rehab centers must show continuous improvement in the patient in order to get full recovery of Medicare coverage. There is pressure to get the patient up and out on a cost basis.
When some talk about leaving little to their children, I think a better alternative is to plan to have plenty of money to cover these types of expenses and make those years as comfortable as possible. This may mean leaving a lot to your children or to some charity. Of course, if not specified, I suppose the government will help themselves.
SUPPORT
The time may come when you are not able to travel either because of your health or your wife's health. Enjoy life while you are able, because health will not last forever.
This also means that you or your spouse may be burdened with a lot of extra work handled by your partner. Right now, I cook, do all the grocery shopping, clean house, bring in the mail, take out the trash, make special trips to take my wife where she needs to go, make the beds, get things from higher shelves that she now finds to heavy for her to reach, and many other chores that I did not handle before. It takes a lot of time. It means that I often accompany my wife to help her do things she would not otherwise be able to do. While it is not the way I want it, it has a positive aspect of being able to help someone who has given so much to me in the past.
HEALTH
At our age, we may have created a lot of health problems in the past. As stated before, diet, exercise, control of drinking, and avoidance of smoking are extremely important of a better life as we get older. I can attest to that for sure. I see many people who are a wreck because of their past life style. Unfortunately, we would all like to take a pill and avoid facing this reality.
Diet. There are a lot of good books and diet, and there are some poor ones. McDougall and his wife have written a number of excellent books. They are on the internet, and they have DVD's. They are vegan, but a non-vegan can learn a lot from them on the relationship of disease and diet. Another excellent book which covers non-vegan and vegan approach is POWER EATING by Susan Kleiner. Don't expect your wife to be interested in learning more about nutrition. It is a very difficult subject -- very complex. There is a lot of conflicting information. If you REALLY want to eat healthy, you will find that a lot of work is necessary to sort all the conflicting inputs.
Exercise. The old Aerobics books by Cooper are probably as good as any, but the affluent society seems to have gone for trainers. At the risk of sounding like a male chauvinist, women do not like to exercise! They avoid it like the plague. Some level of aerobic exercise is absolutely necessary for health. Puttering around in a shopping mall looking at things to buy is NOT exercise. Also strength exercise is important. People often die within too short a time after some major surgery. I think part of the reason is that they cannot exercise for a period, and then getting back into exercise is a real struggle. I have heard all the excuses -- I'm too tired, I need to see someone, I am afraid it will hurt me, it hurts -- well cut back some -- I have something else that needs to be done -- I want to do something else with that time space -- and the excuses go on and on and on.
I guess I am just unrealistic on exercise and nutrition. It takes a lot of work and effort, especially as we get older, but it is extremely important.
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