Long-term care refers to medical and personal care help that people need because of illness, disability or old age.

Such services include help with bathing, toileting, dressing, as well as taking medications, cooking and managing money.

There are a number of places to get such help including home health care, transportation services, assisted living, nursing homes and retirement communities.

But in this country most of that help is provided by family members, according to a story on post-gazette.com.

One survey found that the most common one to help is a woman over 50 who is also working an outside job. Not ideal.

At some point, those family members can’t handle the load any more.

In 2012, the total cost of such services provided by government agencies, private insurance or out-of-pocket totaled some $362 billion. And it is just going to get worse, the story says.

Moral of the story: you can’t fail to plan for what your needs may be because the odds are against you. You must have a financial plan as well as a plan to identify who or what agency or agencies is going to help you.

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