Adult Children's Information Deficiencies and Risk Aversion Regarding LTCI Purchase for Elderly Parents: A Multi Case Study

详细信息   

• 作者：Miller ; Samuel ; D.B.A.
• 学历：D.B.A.
• 年：2014
• 关键词：Children ; Elderly ; Long-term care ; Medicaid ; Medicare
• 导师：Halkias,Daphne
• 毕业院校：Northcentral University
• Department：School of Business and Technology Management
• 专业：Social research,Finance,Individual & family studies
• ISBN：9781321276657
• CBH：3641469
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：4660039
• Pages：241

文摘

Long-term care is the greatest uninsured risk facing the American public today. The failure to plan for long-term care has had a serious,and often devastating,impact on families that are thrust into the role of caregiver to an elderly parent. The failure to plan for long-term care also has very serious consequences for society,which,through public programs such as Medicaid,pays for a huge and unsustainable portion of long-term care supports and services. The impact of the failure to plan for long-term care is becoming more devastating due to the confluence of several factors. People are living longer now than ever before thereby increasing the demand for long-term care services and supports,with the population of senior citizens expected to more than double in the near future. There are far fewer family caregivers available to provide care to elderly parents as a result of lower birth rates,later marriages,and the rapid increase of women participating in the workforce,reducing the available pool of family caregivers. Understanding the dynamics of long-term care planning,and the failure to plan for long-term care,is a necessary step in successfully addressing long-term care planning. Adult children of elderly parents rarely participate in their parents' future planning for long-term care. The purpose of this qualitative,multiple case study,was to explore how adult children's information deficiencies and risk aversion impact how they advise their parents on the purchase of long-term care insurance. The participants for the study were 12 adult children between the ages of 25 and 44,with incomes greater than $75,000 per year,with assets greater than $200,000. These participants were carefully selected from a commercially available demographic list from the New York-Long Island Metropolitan area,to be representative of adult children with similar demographics from other regions of the country. The research findings suggested that the information deficiencies of adult children of elderly parents is the greatest barrier to adult children's participation in the long-term care planning of their elderly parents. The findings indicate that adult children of elderly parents are unaware of the costs of long-term care,the chances of their parents needing long-term care,the burden of caregiving on themselves and their families,and how medical insurance and Medicare play virtually no role in a long-term care event. Other findings indicated that once these adult children were provided with credible updated information on the factors pertaining to long-term care their risk aversion toward such planning was replaced with the willingness to engage in long-term care planning with their parents. From a practical application standpoint,this study is important for adult children of elderly parents,the elderly parents,long-term care advocates,long-term care providers,legislators at all levels of government,and insurance companies in the business of long-term care insurance,as this study provides insights into the perceptions of long-term care by those most affected by the failure to plan for long-term care. Future research is required to expand on these findings by developing appropriate,credible,and understandable awareness campaigns regarding the nature of long-term care and its impact on families and society.