Let’s face it, you aren’t going to live forever. Try as you might sooner or later (hopefully later) you will be out of this sphere of existance. It is hard enough planning for your family and their needs as is but it is harder if you are caring for a special needs relative.
It is important that you have whatever insurance you can in place and current. It is important that you have a guardian already in place to take care of your parent, child, grandchild, etc. in the event something happens to you. You don’t want a judge to make an arbitrary decision as to who should be taking care of your special needs loved one.
Are you saving enough now? I know, I know – money is tight, you may lose your job (maybe you aren’t working) but it is important to try and have enough cash stashed away.
What about special long term considerations if something happens to you that prevents you from taking care of that person? Costs for long term care rocket if you don’t plan for them early on and get insurance where you can for yourself. The Federal Government allows great tax breaks if you are currently paying for Long Term Care insurance.
2008
For 2008, the maximum amount of qualified long-term care premiums you can include as medical expenses has increased. You can include qualified long-term care premiums, up to the amounts shown below, as medical expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040)
- Age 40 or under – $310.
- Age 41 to 50 – $580.
- Age 51 to 60 – $1,150.
- Age 61 to 70 – $3,080.
- Age 71 or over – $3,850.
Note. The limit is for each person.
Those amounts above are for premium payments and surprisingly, the deductions for the medical expenses are pretty close to what the premium payments are for the long term coverage.
Please make sure you talk to other special needs parents about setting up a trust fund. You need something pretty bulletproof so any money that goes to your loved one is not going to be taxed or they might end up losing whatever other government benefits (like Medi-Cal, disability) that they are currently getting.
Please write your Congressmen (and women) as well as the Governors, and Presidential candidates. We are in a rough situation right now where if you make any kind of money, any kind of funding that helps a lot of special needs people will be yanked. Make your voices heard so that the people who can’t talk for themselves to get the special care and assistance that they need, get heard. It is cliche to say that but it still is an effective cliche.
Make sure that you also trust the people that are taking care of your elderly or special needs charges on a daily basis. A lot of people are in the health care field for the money and not for the calling to help others. That is fine by me and they are entitled to make a profit as long as they do their job and do it well. After all they are taking care of our daughters, sons, parents, grandparents, relatives and ultimately in some cases, us.
Please drop me a post as to what you might want to see tax wise or business wise in terms of special needs. I have a daughter who has Rett Syndrome and I get where you are coming from. You don’t want to gamble if you can help it with something like this.
A portion of all my book sales from all my books goes to finding a cure for Rett Syndrome and research to make girls suffering with Rett Syndrome lives a little easier. Rett Syndrome affects a girl born every fifteen minutes. Most boys born with the Rett gene die at birth. Rett is not Tourette. That is a different syndrome.
Questions or comments? Let me know about them! Thanks for taking the time to visit and for more information or to get back to the beginning of the blog, go here.