Get ready to take care of gramma and grampa at your own home. No more placing them in a facility. Either that or it's the sidewalk. Think I'm wrong? It's only a matter of a few short years.
All the convalescent and assisted living facilities will soon be going out of business in CA. Believe me.. I know The state of CA has imposed a bed tax of $8.10 per bed... per day.. whether they have anyone in them or not. And now they are cutting Medi-Cal 10%... making it veritably impossible to run the homes. I am on such a board and we figure that we only have a few more years to assist our seniors and then go bankrupt. But hey, all college bound illegals will get free student loans.
My mom is paying $4200/month for assisted living. Every penny she gets from social security plus $1,000 more. She is way past tired of the food in the dining facility. The long term care insurance she funded at $300/month for years won't pay a penny because the facility isn't "supervised" by a doctor. The few that meet that spec are ratholes full of wailing, moaning wretches. She was in such a place for 6 weeks between the hospital and current location. It's going to be a moot point soon. Her most recent episode of congestive heart failure shows a BNP2 at 2100 and kidney function under 20%. While checking her lungs for fluid, they discovered large tumors in both lungs. The lung cancer is running at a full gallop. It won't be long before she passes.
Adults use to care for their parents..there was no such thing as nursing homes when I was a kid...but there was a poor house where those without means could have a roof over their head and no one wanted to be known as a person that put their parents in the poor house...My family had a 2 bedroom house with a kitchen, dining room living room. I had 2 sisters, 1 brother and for 4 months out of every year my grandma lived with us...My mothers 2 brothers had her for 4 months each and every 4th year one would take the deduction on their taxes...her other brother gave money go help with grandma's needs as he didn't have the ability to care for her, he had a nervous breakdown and never quite got rid of it... In todays terms, I figure he had chronic depression and although married, never had any kids of his own....that was the normal way.
I came along at the end of the depression but my father was a Detroit cop and we always had dinner as a family...No refrig. but an old ice Box, no TV, it wasn't available in the 40's, no air conditioning, coal furnace, dishwasher (that was the kids job). Women stayed home to care for the kids, but families could only afford 1 car and that was what mothers did....a few worked, but only if a family member was in the home (like a grandmother or aunt) to take care of the children...
Dag nab it, I am starting to sound like an old lady....dag nab it, I am an old lady...
The middle class of those days didn't have the conveniences the poor have today...Oh yea, no welfare, a man had pride and would do anything to keep off the dole as it was called. Only bums went on the dole...
I don't know what it was like during the depth's of the depression, but I'd bet it was far worse than it is today...
PS 4 party telephones were common, we had only a 2 party line...and by the last 40's a private phone...my how things change....
PPSS Our home was an income. The upstairs could be rented out, but only to someone we personally knew...Looked a lot like the opening house on the Roseann Barr old show...