LV101,
Healthcare in the US really needs some serious work unless you can afford one of the better policies but still the deductibles can be killers. I have always had great insurance but managed 5 times to hit what is classified as catastrophic losses according to the insurance company where my out of pocket expenses reached $5,000 for the year. I just wonder how the average family can afford such an expense.
The elderly is another ballgame and I am in that one with my mother. I attempted to care for her. Well that just did not work out. Long story short, the County Sheriff and Social Services had a long talk with me and said for my safety she needed to be placed in a locked down unit at a nursing facility NOW. Apparently they had my house on watch status for my safety LOL. Well we had to pay $6,000 a month for 4 years till we drained her bank account down to $2,000 before Medicare would start paying one red cent. All this time they could play with drugs to keep her from beating the crap out of people. See when I took her to the doctor or ER most of the time she was such a sweet old lady except the time she knocked out the EMT driver and the time she came after me in front of the Sheriff with a butcher knife. Such a nice old lady. BTW, she is still alive and still trying to beat up the other patients and staff at 89. And she has managed to escape 4 times this past year thus why she has an ankle monitor. She can only make it to the parking lot.