Affording Boomer Long-Term Care in Minnesota and the Nation

What Do Demographics and Health Trends Tell Us?

Preview:

How to pay for the retirement of 77 million baby boomers will be an intensifying debate.  This report examines one slice of the debate: how to meet the escalating long-term care (LTC) needs of the elderly. Specifically, this report examines how the changing demographics and health of the elderly in Minnesota and the nation will impact both the need for LTC and the resources available to provide LTC.

Most LTC reform efforts center on how to get more people to pay for their own LTC. Efforts to encourage greater personal responsibility and more self-financing may indeed be the most important part of the solution, but it is not the only part. Oscillating Twentieth Century birthrates—a cultural phenomenon—is largely responsible for our present problem: Might other cultural shifts and undulations be part of the solution? The demographic and health trends identified in this report suggest yes. The data show that a number of factors, such as a strong work ethic, robust families, fewer widows, and better eating habits, can have real impacts on LTC.

A full copy of the report can be viewed here.