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Film Response to Can't Afford to Grow Old

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Film Response to Can't Afford to Grow Old
Can’t Afford to Grow Old
Film Response Paper #3 The main point of the film Can’t Afford to Grow Old is that aging in America has become a scary and difficult time in ones life because the struggle to afford health care is even greater. Most Americans believed that Medicare and their private health insurance would pay all the costs of living in a nursing home. However, the film revealed that it doesn’t. It is actually extremely hard for individuals to find help in paying for a nurse or a housekeeper if they become disabled and need assistance. So many families are eager to keep their elderly relatives at home, however their relatives have used up all of their physical and financial resources. The film states that every year up to a million Americans are forced to live in poverty due to the cost of long-term care in order for them to qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid is a joint federal-state program that provides health coverage or nursing home coverage to certain categories of low-asset people, and people with disabilities and the elderly in need of nursing home care. In order to qualify for Medicaid it was shown in the film that an elderly person must only make an income of eleven thousand dollars a year. Unfortunately some individuals who are just a little bit over than that can not qualify for Medicaid, but paying for regular medical services on their own without being covered is not affordable. So basically you either have to be very rich to afford continuing care or extremely poor for the government to then help you out. Everyone in-between is struggling greatly and they are trying to find ways to help afford health care. Some even suggested that they should spend through the rest of their savings, go into poverty, and then qualify for Medicaid. The film showed the heartbreak people suffered from when trying to tell there loved ones that they can no longer support them with their medical needs and there is nothing they can do now. So what is there to

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