MA3: First Draft In this essay the reasoning’s behind the cost of nursing homes will be examined and why your income can affect how much financial support you receive when entering a nursing home. In-hospital care will also be compared with nursing home care and which one is better than another. In order to understand how this all works, we first need to explore the background information and see exactly where this money is coming from and who all needs this care. Medicare is a program that helps the disabled and the elderly pay for their healthcare costs. If you are part of the working class every check you receive, 2.9%of that money will go toward Medicare alone. Medicare only provides limited benefits from up to one hundred days. From studies done by EBRI (Employee Benefit Research Institute) they looked at the income of people who had stayed less than thirty days had an income around $108,300, people who had stayed between thirty one and one hundred and eighty days averaged around $67,836 per year, and people who had stayed more than one hundred and eighty days had a median income around 5,518, meaning that half of them made more and half made less than that. People who never went into a nursing home had an annual income or around $173,848. A statement made by EBRI said that “nursing home entrants are less wealthy to begin with,” and “possible reasons could be that the average age or nursing home entrants is higher than non-entrants, or that nursing home entrants are less healthy, a condition that correlates with less wealth.” Why is it fair for the poor to have to pay more money for nursing home care, when the rich are much more likely to afford it and not have that money be as much as a burden than it would on the poor? Even with having Medicare to support them, with the high cost of health, it is really difficult for even “comfortable” families to pay for nursing homes. One thing that I do agree on is having everyone pay for Medicare. Eventually everyone will take use of the nursing home, in-hospital care and 2.9% is a very small amount which in this economy a little can go a long way.
One major problem with Medicare is that it doesn’t pay for long-term nursing home care. It only accounts for eleven percent of it. You are on Medicare until you are eligible for Medicaid, which pays for long-term care. One major problem with government policy is that they have created a system since 1983 that reimburses hospitals a fixed amount per