Boomers Cope With Worries About Long-Term Care

USA TODAY’s article correctly identified long-term care insurance as a major financial and emotional concern for Baby Boomers. However, it relied too heavily upon insurance agents and their trade association for an explanation of plan features (“Long-term care worries Boomers,” Cover story, Money, Nov. 22).

Advertisement

Missing from the piece was the protection afforded to people who are insured through coverage that is generally “guaranteed renewable.” This means that even those companies that have stopped selling the coverage are required to maintain coverage for existing customers as long as premiums continued to be paid. The focus here needs to be on state regulators and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ oversight of premium rate increases.

Also missing was any discussion of meaningful benefits such as non-forfeiture protection. This feature provides people with long-term care insurance protection even if coverage lapses due to non-payment. More costly — yes — but it’s a way to protect and maintain coverage if, after premiums have been paid for 20 to 30 years, the insurer seeks unacceptable rate hikes.

Paul Rapo

Middle Haddam, Conn.

An obnoxious generation

Are we tired of the Baby Boomers? (“Tired of the Baby Boomers,” Cover story, Life, Nov. 18.)

If you’re referring to the Boomer babies, those weepy, whiny, long-faced malcontents who complain about everything, were the first to discover sex and behave as if they were members of the only generation to go to war, then no, actually, we are not tired of them. Many of us tuned them out back in the ’60s when they became obnoxious.

Roy Dehn

Lisle, Ill.

Don’t forget about Gen X

Thank you so much, USA TODAY, for informing the world yet again about everything that the Baby Boomer generation has gone through, and are going through, now that they are beginning to turn 65.

I am a member of Generation X — the ones who are always forgotten. I could probably write a book about the Baby Boomers with everything that has been written and reported about them, and shoved down our collective throats for the past 20 years or so. What is there to know about the Baby Boomers that the world doesn’t already know? Seriously.

Has anyone realized that my generation is entering its 40s and moving into different life cycles and situations also? Wouldn’t it be nice to see how my fellow “slackers” are doing at middle age, and how many of us have proved that we’re doing a pretty fine job of being responsible and productive adults?

Sure, we might not be as large a group as the Baby Boomers who come before us, or the Millenials who came after, but don’t you think that we deserve some attention, too? We are the new “sandwich generation.”

But I guess asking USA TODAY to notice my generation, its struggles and accomplishments, is asking too much.

Greta Jordan-Whitworth

Phoenix