Outsourcing the elderly: Low-cost care, made in India

[diddlysquat]

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=indiahomes03&date=20070803&query=Outsourcing+the+elderly


PONDICHERRY, India — After three years of caring for his increasingly frail mother and father in their Florida retirement home, Steve Herzfeld was exhausted and faced with spending his family's last resources to put the couple in an affordable nursing home.

So he made what he saw as the only sensible decision: He "outsourced" his parents to India.

His 89-year-old mother, Frances, who suffers from advanced Parkinson's disease, now receives daily massages, physical therapy and 24-hour help getting to the bathroom, all for about $15 a day. His father, Ernest, 93, an Alzheimer's patient, has a full-time personal assistant and a cook who has won him over to a vegetarian diet healthful enough that he no longer needs cholesterol medication.

Best of all, the plentiful drugs the couple require cost less than 20 percent of what they do at home, and salaries for their six-person staff are so low that the pair now bank $1,000 a month of their $3,000 Social Security payment. They aim to use the savings as an emergency fund, or to pay for airline tickets if family members want to visit.

more at link

[Bluebear]

1. '$2,000 a month for food, rent, utilities, medications, phones and 24-hour staffing'

Zowie.

[DeSwiss]

2. Absolutely bizarre.....

K&R!

[HughBeaumont]

3. Yet ANOTHER product of Dumberica's fear of universal health care.

Parents shifted to a third world nation in order to save money on their exorbitant health care costs. But universal health care is nothin' but "creepin' socialism! Need more market-driven solutions". UNbelieveable.

And we have people like these guys to thank for that: those that believe the ridiculous Reaganite "Comm'nist!" memes -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1494230&mesg_id=1494230

[enid602]

4. offer

"They aim to use the savings as an emergency fund, or to pay for airline tickets if family members want to visit." I'll bet family members never take them up on the airline tickets offer.

[ikojo]

7. I'd go in a minute if someone offered to pay my airfare to India

One of the first things I'd do is find a tailor to make me several outfits in my size. I love the flowing Indian clothes!

[ikojo]

5. Article was also in the St Louis Post Dispatch this

morning.

These folks must be doing well to get $3k in social security benefits per month. My mom gets approx $1000 or so and when her husband was alive he got less than $600. If she hadn't continued working until she was 69 she'd be far worse off than she already is. Thank GOD (or entity of your choice or non entity) she lives in Illinois because they have far more assistance for poor elderly folks than Missouri offers.

[Ino]

6. Geez, I want to move there! (n/t)

[treestar]

8. Nice of the Indians to let them live there

I hope they're not there illegally! :scared:

Seriously, more power to everyone involved. I imagine many baby boomers are going to have to go where they can live inexpensively when they are too old to work.

[Darth_Kitten]

9. Better yet, let's just outsource all our jobs to India!!!

A middle class standard of living is overrated anyways!

[treestar]

10. But the point is that the dollar goes further in those countries

Middle class people can live the life of the wealthy in such countries. I've heard of people retiring to the third world, willing to put up with whatever uncertainty it entailed, so they could buy a bigger house than they could in the U.S.

When you have scores of baby boomers without enough to retire in middle class comfort in the States, you're going to see more of this.

We are to the world as NYC is to the rest of the US - expensive.

[Darth_Kitten]

11. Well that goes without saying....

serious changes need to be made in the U.S.

On the flip side, India hardly provides a good standing of living for most of it's own citizens, but can treat foreigners like gold.

I wouldn't want to live in any third world nation personally.

[Skidmore]

12. I find this so reprehensible on so many levels.

[Vinca]

13. This is one of the most shameful things I've ever read.

Plenty of money for war, no money for universal healthcare.