I have an uncle who is nearing the end of his life. He’s been losing his mind for some time, and it appears his body is failing to cooperate now. It was so bad last week that my aunt was told to gather the family because this was probably it and the next 48 hours would be critical. Miraculously, he came through and he’s out of imminent danger. His mind, on the other hand, is deteriorating rapidly and he can no longer be left alone, especially at night.

Because his body is recovering, the consensus is to discharge him from the hospital and send him to a nursing home. My aunt has been fighting cancer herself for years and she’s not really up to the task of taking care of an old man suffering from dementia/alzheimer’s full-time.

So my aunt went to check her insurance. It will pay 30 days in a nursing home for my uncle. After that, all costs have to be paid through his assets and after that’s all gone he’ll be able to stay using Medicare or Medicaid.

Obviously, my aunt is freaking out. Assets being their bank accounts and home and all that. They’ve lived in their house for probably 35 years and she has no desire to give it up, especially if it’s just to pay for my uncle’s nursing home care.

Now she’s in the position of huddling with a lawyer and figuring out how to hastily take my uncle’s name off all of their assets to game the system and get him straight through to Medicare (or Medicaid; I get confused which is applicable) so she can still have an independent life even if he no longer can.

I can’t stop thinking about how fucked up this whole thing is. My aunt and uncle are not rich. They’re solidly middle class and have spent their entire lives building their nest egg slowly, all the while carrying insurance and paying all their premiums and doing whatever they’re supposed to in order to be responsible for their present and their future. And now that could be all gone in a flash.

Even worse, my uncle’s son (from his first marriage), who lionizes his father and treats him like a god, admitted that it would have been best for my uncle to have not recovered from his critical time last week because of all the trouble it’s going to cause my aunt now that my uncle is sticking around a while.

Managed health care is a nightmare and it’s a shame that it is so soulless when it comes to taking care of people as they approach end of life.

More reason to hope that when I go I go quickly.