• FACT- The cost for daily care provided by a Home Health Aide can exceed $40,000 per year.(4)

• FACT- The odds are less than 1% that ones home will be destroyed by fire over a 30 year period . . . yet the odds are greater than 50% that an individual will require some form of home health care.(1)

• FACT- Contrary to common belief, 89% of home health care costs and 98% of nursing home costs are left uncovered by Medicare.

• FACT- The odds are greater than 3 in 5 that an individual will require nursing home care sometime during his or her lifetime.(2)

• FACT- An average nursing home stay for a year costs about $30,000.(3)

• FACT- After 6 months in a nursing home, most people will be impoverished and forced to end on Medicaid.(5)

• FACT- Most of the elderly in nursing homes are there not for medical reasons (skilled nursing care), but because they cannot perform tasks of daily living.(6)

• FACT- Nursing homes provide service on two broad levels: skilled nursing and custodial care. Skilled nursing homes provide a fairly intensive level of nursing care on a continuous basis which is next in intensiveness to hospital care. Most use of skilled nursing care is on a short term basis such as rehabilitation or recuperation from a hospital stay.(6) This is the type of care the Health Security Act will cover . . . not the lengthy custodial stays.

Sources:

• (1)Dept. of Health and Human Services
  
• (2)The Wall Street Journal, 1990
  
• (3)U.S. News & World Report, 1990
  
• (4)Based on actual daily charge of $111.20 per 8 hour day
  

  Upjohn Health Care Services
  

• (5)National Underwriter, 1990
  
• (6)Long -Term Care: Needs, Costs, and Financing, Health Insurance Association of America, 1992