Provide answers to the questions below.
Your mother’s Alzheimer’s disease is getting worse; she wanders around the neighborhood, sometimes unable to find her way home; she sleeps during the day and stays up most of the night, and she has become incontinent. Your father died 2 years ago. You and your spouse both work, you have three school-aged children, and you have an extra room in your home. The hospital social worker calls and says that your mother needs 24-hour-a-day help. Your choices are:
a) hiring a homemaker to live with your mother at $16,000 a year
b) placing your mother in a nursing home whose bill will be paid by Medicaid; and
c) taking your mother home with you.
What do you decide?
Discuss the pros and cons of each choice based on the textbook’s material and provide supporting evidence.
What reform in the United States long-term care system might have benefited you in this situation?
How should such reform be financed?
