I guess the financial arrangements in retirement centers vary, but as I understand it, the 90% refund policy policy means that 90% of the purchase price of the condo or apartment is refunded if the owner becomes incapacitated and enters a long term (nursing home) facility which many of the retirement centers have attached.

The elderly person who can afford a non-subsidized residence in a retirement center, probably has worked hard and saved and been proud to be on Social Security/Medicare rather than Welfare/Medicaid which is what people with no assets who have not paid into Social Security receive.

There's a significant difference in benefits for Medicare/Social Security which is paid for by the working population and administered by the Federal Govt. and Medicaid/Welfare which is paid for from our tax dollars and administered by the state.

Social Security/Medicare pays for only part of the cost of medical care and only for care that is temporary and has an end in sight. (The machinations health care providers go through to prove that the care is temporary and has an end in sight is ridiculous. It's time consuming and expensive). Medicare/Social Security does not pay for prescription drugs or long term care.

Medicaid/Welfare pays for both prescription drugs and long term care.

So if a person on Social Security/Medicare pays $100,000 cash for a home in a retirement facility and then winds up incapacitated and in a nursing home, they would get $90,000 back. But that amount would probably be depleted in less than two years or maybe even less than a year in a long term (nursing home)facility. Only when all of the funds are depleted and all the assets are gone, will the person become eligible for Welfare/Medicare which will then kick in and pay for long term care and prescription drugs.

So those already on Welfare who may never have paid into Social Security and who have no assets at all get their long term care and prescriptions paid for from day one whereas those on Social Security/Medicare who have paid into Social Security all of their life and saved and have assets wind up surrendering all they have worked for including their pride in being independent in order to afford the long term care and prescription drugs they must have to survive.

I understand that there are cases when people have no alternative to Welfare, but it doesn't seem fair to punish those who paid into Social Security by forcing them to surrender all they have accumulated over a lifetime of work to the health care system.

Veterans get a bad deal too. Seems to me that they have already paid the price for all the health care they will ever need. After all, they risked their life to defend our country and preserve our way of life. Then when they are elderly and need long term care, they too have to surrender all their assets in order to wind up on Welfare/Medicaid.

I just heard on the news that a bill to reimburse Medicare patients for prescription drugs the way Medicaid patients are now reimbursed has passed and may become law soon. Maybe that will equalize the situation, but I'm sure not counting on it.

Sorry for the long boring post. It's just that I am in the middle of that so often and see the havoc it wreaks on lives. No one seems to want to deal with it because we all think we'll be independent and live forever, but we will all be facing it soon either with our parents or for our selves.

There are ways around all that which many of you probably already know. Maybe someone has had experience with that.....