Longevity of life, advancements in healthcare and economic downturn has lead to one serious problems for America's elderly and their children – how to pay for rising healthcare costs. This is becoming a cause of great concern today. The cost of prescription drugs, rehabilitation, in-home care all are rising and thus either they have to shell out money from their pocket or depend upon their children to do so.
While doctor’s visits, hospitalization, and home care are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, HMOs and private insurance policy – they do require co-payments and insurance deductibles. For elderly with little or no income, even these become challenging to pay out of their pockets. Not only this, many of the plans mentioned above do not cover elderly's special needs – home modifications, transportation services etc. These can greatly help elderly in living their lives. This is where reverse mortgage comes into picture.
Your needs can vary from home modification to in-house care, to co-payments, transportation help, etc. the money from reverse mortgage can help in all these situations. By converting your home equity in cash you can gain control of your situation.
Below are some of the real life examples cited by publication of National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association how elderly have leveraged reverse mortgage in solving their healthcare problems.
- William Ellis Added a Downstairs Bedroom to Make His Wife More Comfortable: In 1988 her wife was disabled that left her wheelchair bound. He did not want her to put into a nursing room and thus decided to convert his garage into ground floor bedroom. The modifications cost more than USD 40,000 and he did not have that amount of money. To pay for the work, he obtained a reverse mortgage with a line of credit. The reverse mortgage paid for the additional room plus other changes.
- Dorothy Rogers, age 45 paid for Paid for her Prescription Medication: When tragically, in August 1976, Mr. Rogers suddenly passed away just 20 days before retiring. To make ends meet, Mrs. Rogers relied on her Social Security. Initially, the monthly Social Security check she received was enough to survive. But over time, as inflation increased, the $743 she received was barely enough to cover her daily living expenses. Those awful days of choosing ended on November 20, 2000, when Mrs. Rogers obtained a reverse mortgage. She now receives over $1000 a month in extra income for life! As Mrs. Rogers puts it, her life has completely changed for the better. She has no problem paying for prescription drugs, food, or bills.
There are many more examples like this of elderly who have benefited immensely from the usage of reverse mortgage for their healthcare problems.