Long-Term Care Insurance in Money Magazine

"Long-Term Care Insurance: When It Makes Sense" by Justin Martin in the May 2008 issue of Money Magazine is typical of the poor job mass media does when discussing long-term care insurance (LTCI). It says that "Among Americans who reach their 65th birthday, 45% will have to pay for some kind of long-term-care services" but that "Only 9% of 65-year-olds can expect a lengthy nursing-home stay" although "another 18% will need long-term assisted living care". The author never explains how those numbers add up. What's really annoying is the way the risks are minimized. It says that "even a long-term stay could be a matter of months, not years" but elsewhere in the article it states that the "the average stay [in a nursing home] is 2 1/2 years." Likewise, it suggests that the odds are very low (9% for the nursing home stay) but for something financially catastrophic that strikes me as a very high risk. LTCI is a challenging subject but articles like this just cloud the waters further.