Senior Vice President of John Hancock Long Term Care Insurance said, "Our survey suggests that Americans hold a number of alarming misconceptions about their potential need for long term care. Their lack of worry and subsequent failure to plan for long term care despite understanding the financial impact it can have on people's lives, can lead to serious consequences in the future.”
Most respondents (57%) were concerned about LTC costs compared with 69% in the 1997 survey. Also 51% versus 59% in 1997 expressed worry about ever needing LTC.
Almost three quarters (69%) of respondents have done little or no planning for LTC with 43% not planning at all. These results are not a surprise considering the average respondent only answered four questions correctly on a 10-question true/false quiz about LTC basics.
The topic of not being able to take care of your self is not the hottest of topics most people want to talk about or acknowledge as a possibility for their future. This is also a sensitive topic depending on the culture you are talking about.
The United States is such a mixture of different ethnicities and cultures that LTC is not a choice for some families. Keeping parents and grandparents with the family versus putting them in an assisted living or nursing home varies from household to household. When a survey on LTC is done the different ethnicities or cultures surveyed need to be taken into consideration when dissecting the results. Otherwise the findings are not too helpful.
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