The Connecticut Elder Law Blog

Loneliness and the Elderly

I often visit the Connecticut Senior Information website, which acts as a hub of important web-based information for seniors here in the Nutmeg State, and recently I ran across this thoughtful musing on loneliness and the elderly: Download Loneliness.doc.  Unfortunately, there is no author provided.

This writing seems to assume a middle-aged audience and asks the reader to project forward to the future when the young kids you raised have struck out on their own to raise their own families, you are no longer working and you have reached a point where visits from friends are few and far-between because they can't get out easily or they have departed the earth altogether.  The result: a deep sense of isolation and loneliness.

I appreciated the insight this writing provides since my wife and I are deep in the throes of raising three energetic young boys with their soccer games, cub scouts, educational issues and trying to keep the household at least somewhat in order.  Oh yes, there's running the law practice as well!  This leaves precious little time for visiting my parents, despite the fact that they are less than an hour away.  Just making a phone call is a bit of a task since the 2 year-old and 5-year old apparently have a policy of climbing all over me and demanding a dozen different things whenever they see me reach for the phone.

So I think there's a lot of truth to this writing and it provides an insightful perspective on how a sense of loneliness can gradually creep up on members of our elderly population.  So if you have seniors in the family I ask that you take five minutes out of your hectic day to give this a quick read.

Furor Over Long Term Care Insurance Rate Hikes in CT

The Hartford Courant is reporting that some legislators are calling for public hearings regarding Genworth's proposed 9% rate increase for long term care insurance premiums.  But that's chump-change compared to proposed increases from other insurers ranging between 29% to 49% or higher!  Ouch!

I've always counseled clients to try to get long term care insurance if they're insurable and if they can swing the premiums without taking a hit in their standard of living.  This is because the long term care insurance route is generally the preferred approach compared to Medicaid planning.  But if premium rates continue to rise like this then the preferred approach is going to be a viable option for fewer and fewer clients.

I don't know how much of an impact these proposed public hearings will make, but I suppose they can't hurt.  I'll keep my ear to the ground on this issue.