Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
It’s that time of year. Yes, spring break, yes, April Fool’s Day, (maybe it’s good that most of the kids across the state will be on break when it rolls around this Wednesday) and finally, two weeks after April Fools Day and with surprisingly strong connections to idiocy, is the tax deadline mandated by the IRS.
We do get taxed a little, OK, more than a little. We pay taxes on our wages, on the things we buy, on the things we own, cars, trucks, boats, trailers and homes, on our social security and retirement plans when the money is put in and again on social security and those retirement plans when we take it out. (Thanks Ronald Reagan, it was ol’ Dutch that implemented the double-taxation on social security.)
I’ve done my taxes since I was 16. At first it was that newsprint booklet with the tax tables in the back and an easy 1040EZ form. Then you went to the post office or public library and picked up the forms you needed printed neatly in 8 ½ x 11 stacks of white paper.
Later, you were able to do a rudimentary job online.
Now, I don’t cut corners, I spend just shy of $400 each year for TurboTax Home and Business and the straight up TurboTax Business that handles LLCs and S-Corps.
It doesn’t take that long to enter a few K-1s, W2s, 1099s (INT, DIV and others) then add up the charitable donations, take depreciation on the vehicles, machinery and property, buy an IRA if we owe anything and send it away on the Interweb.
I do the same for a handful of people, helping them with their taxes.
My mom did her taxes the old-fashioned way until just a few years ago. She had my sister or me pick up the forms she needed, she filled them out in ink, usually with a check since she almost always owed a little and then mailed it.
Heaven forbid that she do anything online. Like many of the Greatest Generation, they just didn’t trust anything they couldn’t hold in their hand. Understandable. They watched their parents lose everything to greedy bankers and clueless investors as children of the Great Depression.
This is the final time I’ll do Mom’s taxes. She passed away almost a year ago. The IRS demands one final 1040 to close out her account.
As I started her taxes for the last time, a few things came up from the last 16 months.
Mom had a stroke on New Year’s Day 2025. She ended up at Sage West in Riverton for a few days and then moved into extended care at Westward Heights in Lander.
She didn’t like Westward Heights at first, but it grew on her. She didn’t like Homestead here in Riverton either. I was the evil son that was taking everything away from her.
When I explained it wasn’t safe for her at her home on Broadway in Riverton, she was quick to reply. “I’ve only fallen down four times since we moved in here.”
She was right, four times in the previous three weeks. With a house full of antiques, steel appliances, a couple of cast iron stoves and several steps, it wasn’t the place for someone with balance issues.
We didn’t know what to expect at Homestead, but we were pleasantly surprised. It is an outstanding institution. High quality care, an involved, caring, helpful staff and the cost wasn’t that bad.
Mom was a bit of a pack rat, not quite a hoarder, but you could see it as a possibility if she went unchecked.
We packed enough furniture, knickknacks, mementos and old albums to furnish five of the Homestead apartments, but she had only one. One day on a visit I counted 51 shelves on 24 different pieces of furniture. Even after a year, she was still unpacking boxes.
That fateful day of her stroke, everything changed. Her familiarity with Homestead, and the ease of getting one of us to take her somewhere or the pleasure of constant visitors didn’t vanish, but it diminished.
I can only say good things about the Homestead crew. They went above and beyond.
At Westward Heights, the facility was much larger. There were more staff members, physical therapists, nutritionists and specialists of all kinds. She was frustrated with the TV at times, but otherwise she was a happy camper at Westward Heights.
Both facilities are manned (or rather womaned, is that even a term) by competent, caring individuals. They were truly remarkable.
What wasn’t remarkable was the long-term care insurance providers that mom and dad had paid almost a quarter million dollars in premiums into.
These bastards have it figured out. Their entire game plan is stall, stall, stall. They know their clients are on borrowed time and they stretch that time as far as they can.
When mom entered Homestead I contacted her primary long-term care insurance provider. It took nine calls, with long hold times after I refused to hang up and asked for a supervisor before they even found her account.
On the 10th call, they finally recognized her account number, the same one I’d provided every day for the previous two weeks.
There was a 90-day waiting period before they would pay. It was probably in the fine print of the original contract my parents signed, but I couldn’t find it anywhere in the current documentation.
Mom paid out of pocket for the first three months. Finally, her waiting period was over and, you guessed it, no check arrived.
I began calling every day. The check was delayed, it was in the mail, the agent responsible for her account was out… There was likely an “excuse” sheet in front of the first line agents. Finally, after another 10 days, I bumped my call up two levels to a supervisor and asked for her name and employee ID number.
Why she asked, “So my attorney has the information,” I said.
Mom finally started getting her checks, but my friend Marci in the front office at the Reach Foundation had to remind these clowns every month to pay.
Homestead was only about $3400 a month, with insurance paying almost $2300 of it. Westward Heights is another story.
Mom’s first 90 days were covered by Medicaid, but she still needed the extended care and her insurance would have to cover it. Westward Heights was over $11,000 per month. Her one policy paid $2300, the other, with over $100,000 in her account, would only pay $290 per month.
What a racket.
Mom passed two days before we had to come up with around $9000 a month for her care.
Here is the clincher. The same bastards that couldn’t find mom’s account information contacted me on April 12, the day after she passed.
Not even 24 hours later, they knew she had died. By text, then by e-mail and a few days later by certified mail they informed me that her coverage was terminated.
They couldn’t find her when it was time for them to cover their commitments, but within a few hours of her passing, they knew about it, had canceled the policies and made contact with me.
Dad never used his long-term care. Mom had enough to cover Westward Heights (if the companies paid out her full statement, which they refused to do) for almost two years.
These conmen made off with almost $200,000 of my parents’ money.
Sue and I have been paying $4800 a year for me, and $3700 for her for the last decade into a long-term care plan.
I know it’s a ripoff. I know what happened to mom and dad, but we don’t want to burden the kids with the costs. But even with good interest rates, 10 years at $4800 a year won’t cover a single year at a high-end care center.
The alternative is to have less than $2000 in assets and only one vehicle. That qualifies you for Medicaid long term care, there is no Medicare provision for long term care. Any assets you have will be taken. There is a five-year period prior to enrolling in the federal plan where anything you’ve transferred, given to your children or donated will have to be returned and taken by the feds before your plan kicks in. They have all the bases covered.
It’s a game where only the fat cats win. Call it corporate America, because that’s what it is.