How to pay for Alzheimer's care?
The cost of Alzheimer's care depends on the facility that provides this care. Specialized facilities usually have higher costs than general geriatric care ones. Though there are several ways to cover the cost: I think you'd better read the article http://www.autumngrove.com/blog/how-to-pay-for-alzheimers-care/ or learn their brochure http://www.autumngrove.com/wp-content/uploads/cost-of-assisted-living.pdf See Paying for Care | Caregiver Center | Alzheimer's Association. Notable excerpts: For most individuals 65 or older, Medicare is the primary source of   health care coverage. However, private insurance, a group employee   plan or retiree health coverage also may be in effect.   [...]   In addition to Medicare, the person with dementia may qualify for a   number of public programs. These programs provide income support or   long-term care services to people who are eligible. This includes   Social Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) for workers younger   than 65, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, veteran benefits,   and tax deductions and credits.   [...]   Many community organizations provide low-cost or even free services,   including respite care, support groups, transportation and   home-delivered meals. You also may consider informal care arrangements   using family, friends, neighbors, faith communities and volunteer   groups.
"More like:  nobody *can* pay for it.   Just paying for someone to be available near a person 24 hours a day is very labor intensive.    Expensive, even at minimum wage.  So a worker has to earn enough both to pay their own living expenses, but also the living expenses of their ailing mom *and* the living expenses of 2-3 aide workers.   That's crazy.  And that's not even counting in actual health care.  We're going to reach a breaking point with nursing homes etc soon.   To a much greater extent, you'll see some combination of ailing parents who would otherwise need 24 hour care allowed to die by not having medical interventions, moving back in with their kids and the kids sacrificing their career, ""suicided""..." Depending on the particulars, you could get an Amex Serve account, load it into your Serve account, have them send a check for $150 to a family member of yours, and then have your family member transfer $150 to you seperately. You can also approach some charities with this idea. They can set it up so that the extra funds, if you die early, go to the charity. They will set it up as an annuity through an insurance company they work with. They do. The $260 already accounts for fees, I just left that out as I didn't believe it necessary info for the question of how to solve for group B.   Edit : Oh, you mean accounting for the 1.5% interchange for group A? Yeah, I didn't do that. For group A we weren't given a number for monthly spend but we were told that they carry an average monthly balance of $3000. Approximately $6,000 a year on the healthcare marketplace (obamacare).   They can get away with a little cheaper for a plan with a huge deductible (ie $5,000), which could reduce their plan to $4k a year.       They also pay medicare tax of 2.9% of their income (1.45% from employee side, and 1.45% payroll taxes).  These pay for medical care for retirees. This is a good question and you seemed troubled by this and this person's choices in life.  And that is the rub, they are choices.  They know how to make them, they know the consequences, and they know how to work around them.  Its a skill you probably don't have (and don't want to have).   In the end they will survive.  If you go to a fast food store in a popular retirement location you will see plenty of elderly people working.  They might live in low income housing, receive some financial assistance, and utilize other charities such a food banks.  They might depend on family and friends.  There is also the ugly, it is not a fairy tale that some supplement their diets with pet food.   There is of course social security.  The amount is very low for most workers, but the amount is almost inconsequential.  They would spend it all anyway and still be short despite the predictability of the income and a time frame with  predictable expenses.  Budgeting is a skill. So I have a friend that deals with this himself, and is helping an elder relation.  He and his wife provide some help, but when it started there was a endless stream of requests.  His policy now is:  No more help unless he works out a budget with the person requesting help. I've used his ideas myself, and by using this it becomes clear on who is in actual need and who is just looking for the next handout.  You can feel good about yourself for helping an actual needy person or guiltless say no. It's simple. Most people don't spend $6000 a year in medical care. As for myself, there's probably only $400 or less, mostly in annual checkups and the like.  If you are the type to require more medical care, then you will pay more per month. I know a person with asthma, kidney stones, and inflammatory issues. This person spends probably $1000 in co-pays per year, with considerable more if you were to include the hospital visits in the likes. But if you don't think you are one of these people, then don't get the higher cost plan. Your relative in the US could buy a pre-paid Visa (aka Visa gift card) and give you the numbers on that to pay.  They're available for purchase at many grocery/convenience stores.  In most (all??) cases there'll be a fee of a several dollars charged in addition to the face value of the card. The biggest headache I can think of would be that pre-paid cards are generally only available in $25/50/100 increments; unless the current SAT price matches one of the standard increments they'll have to buy the next card size up and then get the remaining money off it in a separate transaction.  A grocery store would be one of the easier places for your relative to do this because cashiers there are used to splitting transactions across multiple payment sources (something not true at most other types of business) due to regularly processing transactions partially paid for via welfare benefits. If you know the amounts that were combined ($5,000 and $7,500 in your example) -- NOT the original loan amounts necessarily -- then you can calculate a payment schedule (in Excel, Google Sheets, online, etc.) using that amount and the interest rate.  You can then apply your payments ($100) to that payment schedule, making sure to either accrue interest if your $100 didn't cover the monthly payment, or pay down extra principal if your $100 more than covered the payment.   The outstanding principal is the amount left or remaining balance. A program like GnuCash or Quicken makes doing the payment schedule, and applying payments relatively easy to handle.  Spreadsheets will require you to have 36 lines (3 years x 12 months) of payment and recalculation detail, but that shouldn't be too much work. To be fair to your mother, make sure you include any partially accrued interest on the full balance when paying it off.  Or even better, include a full month's interest in the pay-off amount. "There really isn't any good ways that I'm aware of. (The exception is in New York or California, where hospitals must post prices.) The law sets price floors on many procedures by setting Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. As a result, the ""list price"" for a given procedure is dramatically inflated, and various health insurers negotiate rates somewhere in the middle. I'd recommend talking to the business offices or financial counselors at medical groups that you do business with. Ask about ""self pay discounts"" or other programs appropriate for folks in your position." "“Nobody put me on this Earth to pay for everybody’s health plan. I know that sounds like Scrooge or somebody. But this is the real world.”""  Things like this ring a bit hollow when for what the US already pays for Medicare, the NHS covers everyone.  Not only that, but corporate subsidies and military spending far outweigh medicine expenditures.  It seems like a simple easy and wrong answer that avoids even a hint of reality." The US is where you want to go for complex, highly invasive, or cutting-edge-not-quite-experimental-anymore medical care.  If it's not heart surgery or brain surgery or treating cancer with your own harvested stem cells, there are much cheaper options available in other nations. Apparently, you have never visited with any Elders.  The money provided by the government has undermined the work ethic of the native Americans which is why drug and alcohol abuse is rampant in their communities.  If you pay some to do nothing they will do nothing. "Welcome to America!  This country is not meant to be a free ride. I personally  (single, ""native"" male) pay a significant amount each year to Uncle Sam and receive no benefits at all.  Where do ""natives"" sign up for the free stuff?!" The solution to this problem is somewhat like grading on a curve. Use the consumption ratio multiplied by the attendance (which is also a ratio, out of 100 days) to calculate how much each person owes. This will leave you short. Then add together all of the shares in a category, determine the % increase required to get to the actual cost of that category, and increase all the shares by that %.