Dare to Dream? Dare to Scheme |
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Caring For Parents
Compared to the emotional impact of seeing her mother paralyzed by a devastating stroke, the finances were the easy part for Mary Weeks.
Her parents had made no preparations for their long-term care. When her 85-year-old mother Dorothy could no longer live at home, Weeks and her brother were forced to do some seat-of-the-pants decision-making.
Hiring a nurse to come in and care for Dorothy was too expensive. A professional caregiver charged a minimum of $15 an hour, meaning that monthly bills would approach $6,000.
Fortunately, her mother was covered by federal Medicaid money, filtered through the state Department of Social and Human Services. The allotment came to about $1,750 a month.
Weeks and her brother found space in a nearby "adult family home"--a small, private alternative to a nursing home with a live-in aide. The government required the home to make room for a certain number of Medicaid patients each month and Dorothy was lucky enough to get one of the Medicaid beds. The family still has dinner together every Sunday and Mary visits her mother four times a week.
Because Medicaid didn't cover the bill entirely, Mary and her brother pay the home $750 a month to cover the balance. Mary, a 50-year-old freelance illustrator, from Issaquah, Washington, simply makes room in her annual budget for this expense, which she is able to absorb without too much difficulty.
"Obviously I would prefer not to be paying that amount of money," she said. "But it's my parents."
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