Yes. Winston-Salem, along with Charlotte, Greensboro, and Asheville, are blue oases in the predominantly red western half of the state. The eastern part of the state is much more mixed up, although it looks like towns and cities lean blue there as well. Raleigh-Durham is quite blue.
S1 went to law school and lived in Winston Salem. He found it to be a relatively conservative southern town, even with the schools there and voting Democratic in 2016. He was used to the Washington DC area. So it really depends on what you compare it to.
Even if cities and towns lean one way or another, politically, thereâs still the stateâs politics that you would have to deal with as well in retirement. As an example, North Carolina residents had the âbathroom lawâ that the state argued about and may still be arguing about it.
DH and I went to Winston-Salem one year with our Ds to visit Wake Forest. The girls wanted to stay at the hotel that night and do room service, so DH and I asked the concierge for a recommendation for a nice restaurant within walking distance. She got us a reservation, and we walked over and had a nice dinner. On the way home, we suddenly heard GUNSHOTS. Several police cars raced by us and pulled up literally just around the corner from where we were standing. We then heard MORE GUNSHOTS, so we ran as fast as we could in the opposite direction and then high tailed it back to our hotel.
We live in Dallas, which has areas of high crime, but that was a little too close for comfort!
At one time, DW and I were looking for a retirement home. Asheville was a contender. As @sushiritto suggests, the âbathroom lawâ made it unacceptable to us.
Although the article didnât say, I am suspecting that buying a modestly priced house or condo w/o having a mortgage makes the $1500/mo more do-able.
My brother lives in Costa Rica permanently⊠He needed gall bladder surgery. The surgeon did a good job and brother didnât have post op complications, but his surgeon was the only one in the hospital. Surgeon did 9 cases that day and I believe brother was the last case. Instead of minimal incision, he had a big mid-line incision. Doc told brother he did some other âtweakingâ on him before he closed him up. Of course bigger incision, longer recovery. I have known of people to go to CR for dental work done well and much lower cost than US.
YIKES - H and my LTC policies will have a 60% annual premium increase starting in Jan, and offers several options to lessen cost but also lessen coverage. If accepting an option, canât go back if you change your mind.
So in Jan, our combined policy costs will be $6,600. It hurts, but not having the coverage will hurt worse if we need it.
IDK if my state requires premium increases to be approved or for them to receive notifications. Policy issued in my state and they state made in accordance with laws and regulations.
One option would reduce the annual premium by over $2K each, but would limit daily benefit to $311.85/day (still unlimited lifetime maximum benefit). H and I are both 62 now.
Thoughts?
Each state has an insurance commissioner. You can try reaching out to yours if you have questions about this sizable premium hike. Yikes!
$311/day is a pretty significant benefit NOW, but over the years will be a smaller and smaller share of actual costs in say a decade or two when you or spouse need the benefit.
@SOSConcern â How much of a benefit reduction does $311/day represent? Is the benefit indexed or fixed?
My motherâs plan started with a $150 daily benefit limit but is now up to $420/day due to the 5% increase per day benefit rider.
Is there an option to select a higher daily benefit limit but a lower lifetime max? $311/day represents a daily charge of $388/day, so that should cover confinement in most parts of the country at todayâs prices, but I donât know how that will hold up over time, as @HImom commented.
Since most folks only are not in these environments needing care for more than 3 years, a 3 year cap may be better, or a longer exclusion period before benefits start (as long as you can cover costs prior to benefits kicking in). After the 3 year cap, Medicaid or the patient may be beyond caring.
That is high. Can they keep increasing your premium every single year without restriction? If they have no limits, whatâs to stop them from raising it 100% the next year to try to move people off this policy? Can the state insurance commissioner be counted on to disallow this (if they are even involved)?
@SOSConcern â is your LTC policy with Genworth, by any chance? Ours is and Iâm worried that we might have a huge increase coming up, too. I just read that they got approval to raise some premiums an average of 58%. :((
Thatâs quite a reductionâŠdown to about $2600 annually, I guess? For a benefit of $9350 monthly per person, as I read it. That still seems like the policy pays out pretty well. Depending upon where you live, seems like it would be many years in the future before the costs would go over that.
@busdriver11 â If the resident required a decent amount of assistance (medication management, shower observation, getting dressed), the daily benefit limit would be close to that high in the NY area. I think Boston area costs are similar.
I am in the process of obtaining quotes on AL for one person in a large studio or one bedroom. If no care at all were needed, monthly cost could be $7000, but if no care were needed, the LTC company wouldnât approve the benefit, so assume some level of care to safely complete the ADLs, and you are up $10K/month. Worst case, as in the highest level of daily assistance comes in at $13K. Assuming 80% reimbursement, then $8000 to $10,400/month.
@VaBluebird yes, we have flown in and out of GreensboroâŠbut for a LOT more options, and international flightsâŠCharlotte and RD are close enough.
For higher levels of care, currently care in HNL is about $10,000-11,000/month. In the next decade, will likely increase.
A friendâs father just went into the memory care building at my ILs ALF. Almost $10K/month. He does have LTC insurance and it was a huge pain to get them to pay anything.
My ILs pay around $12K/month for a 2 BR and a lot of care for FIL (meds, shower, dress) and less for MIL.
My motherâs stay in the adult family home (6 residents, 24 hr care) was around $6K/month, probably close to $7K now.
My grandparents lived at home until they passed away, with no additional help needed. Iâd like to think that how it will be for us, but I understand that is very rare.
Oh yeah, the $10-$11k/month for 24/7 care was for only ONE patient in HI in a skilled nursing facility with no A/C and shared room with another patient.
Senior citizens living at home (as opposed to institutions like assisted living or nursing facilities) is actually the norm. However, many do have some in-home assistance. But note that it is also far from the norm to be able to afford $10k per month for assisted living (whether at home or in an institution). It may be more common for the assistance to come from family members. Many may not want to be a burden on their family members, but lack of money limits other choices. (On the other hand, there is at least one thread here where the OPâs aging parents seemingly want to be a burden on the OP, even though they apparently have the money to move into an assisted living facility.)
LTC insurance plan is with CNA - and with many insurances, you have to fight to have them pay out. The one exception is death with active life insurance, and they pay right awayâŠ
I had disability insurance and had aggressive stage III cancer; medical oncologist said pain 8 -10, nausea 8-10, fatigue 8 - 10. 80% is considered full disability. Good company (Northwestern Mutual Life) - they still wanted to not payâŠwhen I highlighted these facts with the claims rep when she said their doctor didnât think I was fully disabled, I said âwell I need to call my attorney in the morningâ. The next morning ins company called and said my disability was approved for payment. They even had a retired FBI guy (who covers our state and several surrounding) come interview me and write up a report (this as before the phone discussion where they said no but then said yes the next morning). I think the retired FBI agent wrote a fair report (I had a friend at the house who was retired govât, and she was a help to me - I needed an advocate as I was really weak from the horrible 4 doses of old chemo I was at as the second line after my 12 chemo treatments of newer chemo and Herceptin). One of the old chemos was in a class of drugs where the infusion is red (they call it âthe red devilâ for a reason); the other drug was Cytoxen which sounds as bad as it is.
Insurance companies in some ways are âbuyer bewareâ caveat emptor. Where you have to press for you to get what you paid for.
I am running the stuff by our financial guy. I agree the inflation is an important element. Policy still would have unlimited benefit period. If we go to lesser plan, no going back.
If we never need it; most likely if we needed it would be many years out and our other investments could make up shortfall. We also have a nurse daughter, and I would hope she could help us manage living outside a facility.
With dementia, the LTC policy pays outâŠI imagine they have it broken out to how bad the dementia is, but it qualifies for LTC. The activities of daily living - much more work to qualify for the LTC insurance.
CNA use to sell LTC insurance in 28 states, but then stopped selling it and instead went big time into physician insurance for malpractice. I do think CNA will be around for a long time.