Nadene Goldfoot
What seniors, and I am thinking of people 80 years and more, really talk about a great deal if they are part of a group with similar backgrounds is a complete disruption in their lives. For some, it may have been an accident, or simply aging, that affected their bodies, causing them to be moved out of a very secure environment.
The move would have had a strong affect of causing a blur in their minds for several years, as a matter of fact. They would have felt they were through a shock. During that shock period they could have gone through the motions of being alive, and not care what was happening to them. And then, they might have come out of it.
There are several levels of seniors at this point. Some would have retained their memories, both past and in a blurry way, the present that would then get better. Some might realize that they are living in an Assisted Living environment away from those who had made up their lives, their family of children and grandchildren, etc. As talks with others cleared the air, they would have found others in the same position, and they were there for LIFE. Then they would realize that their life is measured, and could end at any time. They all wished, of course, for the long life of 100 years, and for some, that was either an award or a punishment. That was a long time to be living as such. How did one accept that fact? Some of us don't.
Assisted Living facilities are the growing business in the US; gone are the days when the aged opened their doors for their children to come and live in their very large homes on farms, etc. Or gone are the days when the children took in their aging parents who became baby sitters and such for the children. It's all Assisted Living. The U.S. assisted living industry has rapidly evolved from basic residential care into a multi-billion-dollar market. Driven by the aging Baby Boomer generation, the sector is characterized by high occupancy, rising costs, and ongoing M&A consolidation. Baby Boomers are defined as individuals born between 1946 and 1964. In 2026, this means Baby Boomers are roughly 62 to 80 years old
Assisted living, to our aged, becomes a prison of sorts; with rules. The aged is not the head of the house anymore but a prisoner. Men have the hardest time adjusting to the regime. Assisted Living work hard to have interesting activities for men and women if they are up to certain physical standards or interests. I see men plotting and hoping to re-connect with their car and drive to the ends of the earth one day. They are men who could not drive safely for anyone on our freeways of today for 5 minutes. I see some women at that point, too.
What happens to us after all our money is gone into paying for living in Assisted Living? Are we thrown out into the streets? This is another area we cover; our money and how quickly it is disappearing. Most of us do have someone, often a family member, handling that part of life for us, which takes away out own individual responsibility for ourself, making us feel weaker, but knowing it is too complicated for us to handle.
That's when an I-SNP steps into our lives. An Institutional Special Needs Plan (I-SNP) is for people who need the level of services provided in a long-term care facility. You must be a Medicare beneficiary entitled to Medicare Part A and enrolled in Part B, and a long-term resident of a participating nursing home, or, as we understand, Assisted Living, to enroll in an I-SNP. In other words, Social Security steps in at this point after tons of papers are filled out about your whole life and where your money went and all this documentation. This will determine whether you are ACCEPTED or not into the program. So we talk about this venture a lot. We have to have special needs, and believe me, if we didn't have them, we wouldn't have stayed at the Assisted Living in the first place. Though we come to love our table mates, and most likely would try to remain in close contact with them as if they were our siblings, we yearn for those days before: so we have a {BAL (before assisted living} and {AAL (after assisted living}.
Now, something new has popped up in the last 2 years, or at least what I hadn't been aware of, and that's An Institutional Equivalent Special Needs Plan (IE-SNP) is for someone who needs the same nursing home level of care, but can live either at home or in an assisted living facility. Oh, there we are. I'm confused already. This is still considered an I-SNP. You must be a Medicare beneficiary entitled to Medicare Part A and enrolled in Part B and live in a plan service area to enroll in an IE-SNP. I really lucked out, I see, with a lovely bathroom and shower facility allowing help when sitting or standing and grab bars all over the place much nicer than the many pictures I've seen. Two showers given a week is the standard, and I can keep my usual one a week. Hallelujah! This comes with dressing, too.
So we may look like we're having a great gab-fest over something, we do find humor in all of this. That's part of being a senior.
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