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Comment by cal_dent | Hacker News Reader

i think they'll be lots of kids out there banking on inheritance who will find themselves surprised by how much aged and end of life care cost soon

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In the US, once you are in an elder care facility and you run out of money, the facility will try to keep you in. At that time they will apply to Medicaid in your name. After you die, Medicaid will try to claw back funds by putting a lien against your house. There are extremely complicated rules about exemptions etc.

https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-estate-recovery-nursing-...

Sure, if someone wants to get rid of their parents in a humane 21st-century way, by way of an elder care facility, it probably costs a lot.

People used to die living with their family. Perhaps they died earlier, and sure there were some problems with that setup, but I don't think it was necessarily worse for the dying. It was certainly cheaper for everyone.

I don't know anyone who wanted to go to an elder care home. My grandma spent her last three months in an elder care home: all she talked about was going home.

I agree with the sentiment of this post but there is also a consideration here that the world has moved on from a non-elder care end of life for many. Jobs have become increasingly concentrated in certain cities, which has prompted more migration away from many people's place of birth (whether town, region or country). You also have many people having much smaller homes relative to the past because they've moved to high density cities for jobs. Their ability to just have their parents in the home isn't so straightforward anymore.

In the middle of it right now with a grandparent. $5000 - $8000 month and you might still find them frozen to death out in the snow if the staff drops the ball in the middle of the night.

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