WA Cares is lifeline to those struggling to pay for long-term care

By Amanda Sullender

When her elderly father needed 24-hour care, Sam Hatzenbeler could not afford it.

She lived on the West Side, while her father lived alone on his horse ranch outside Medical Lake. Unwilling to leave his home, Butch Hatzenbeler was cared for by a home aide who came during the day.

One night, he fell and did not receive treatment until he was discovered by a neighbor hours later.

The fall was the precipitating event that hastened his decline and ultimately led to his death in 2022.

According to Sam Hatzenbeler, had the two of them been able to afford overnight care, he likely would have lived a longer life and been able to enjoy life more in his final days.

As the larger baby boomer generation grows into old age, long-term care will become more important – and likely more expensive. In the future, more and more adult children such as Sam Hatzenbeler will need to take time away from their careers and their family to care for a parent who has no one else.

“He was a stubborn cowboy. He wanted to stay at home,” she said. “I’m an only child and didn’t have any other family support, so just for me alone to figure how he could stay there and still get care was really stressful and really costly.”

After his fall, they sold the farm’s tractor to pay $8,000 for one month at an adult family home.

“His doctor wanted him to have 24-hour care, but that just wasn’t feasible financially,” Sam Hatzenbeler said.

To live somewhere an individual has 24-hour supervision can cost upwards of anywhere between $4,000 and $8,000 a month, according to Judith Bendersky, a retired aging and disabilities specialist at the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

“There are some resources for extremely wealthy people to go to a long-term care facility. But most people cannot find the resources to have care in the home or afford a long-term care facility,” Bendersky said.

Read the full piece in The Spokesman-Review