According to Lincoln Retirement Institute (an extension of Lincoln Financial), 59% of baby boomers believe that people should be concerned about protecting themselves in their old age by purchasing long-term care insurance. Yet, the stats from major life insurers indicate that many boomers are not buying the insurance themselves.

This is in spite of the fact that 85% of boomers believe that they themselves should buy LTC insurance. Out of that number 46% have no plans on actually picking up LTC insurance. This is largely due to overconfidence. Many boomers believe they will just quote "live a healthier lifestyle" and "try to earn higher rates of return on their investments".

It's a sloppy approach to a real problem in my opinion. Many boomers mistakenly believe that they will just use Medicaid to help foot the bill for the nursing home. I doubt this strategy will work for a few reasons:

1) you have to be dead broke before Medicaid will help you;

2) The government is already taking steps now to get out of LTC business in the form of cutting benefits, recouping costs from immediate annuities and going after children whose parents can no longer pay the growing costs of nursing home care; and

3) Filial responsibility laws are on the books in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia...and may  be coming to a State near you. These laws make it increasingly difficult to pass off your responsibility to the State or Federal Government.

If you're planning on using the Government to pay for your LTC needs, don't. Your kids could be in for a HUGE shock.