 I'm Shayna Park, your host for Money Talks. My guest today is Brandon Loresco. Welcome to the show, Brandon. Hey, Shayna, nice to see you again. Thank you for having me back on your show. Thank you for being on. I love having you. For those of you, or for those that don't know you, please tell us more about yourself. Yeah, I've been a part of the financial industry for nearly eight years now. And I'm just excited to be here with a fellow Gen Z, you know, young adults who want to be able to educate, you know, all generations, so we can make sure that, hey, finance may be confusing, but it's something that we all gotta learn. We work hard. Let's learn how we can match our own money so that we can also have a very happy, you know, healthy life. Yes, not just our physical well-being, but our financial well-being as well. So I know we're here to discuss about how November is National Long-Term Care Awareness Month. So why is it so important for us to understand this topic? Yeah, so, you know, I want to bring up the first slides. So, you know, you guys know that I came on before for different topics, talking about college planning, scholarship, financial aid, even just spreading across the national financial literacy campaign that we have here. And in our next slide, we see that, you know, we are always educating across North America and we have, actually, I believe 700 financial centers all across. And, you know, we're here wanting to educate people, educate the little guy, all the hardworking Americans, and making sure that, hey, you guys can learn with us. It doesn't matter if you have a financial background. We want to make sure that these tools and resources are accessible and, you know, easy enough to understand in common language. So all together, you know, we can be successful, that we can help with another. And we think that no one is more interested in your financial, you know, intentions than you are. No one is more interested in your life than you are. And that is why we want to make sure that we have different workshops available, as well as having it in different languages so that, you know, we can have people attend and learn in their native tongue. Well, I know Shayna has been awesome being with you, a colleague in this campaign, sharing financial education. And I think, you know, just working alongside you guys, it's amazing to see you grow and I'm so glad to be on this show. So we can always find a way to educate people and find different platforms to do this. Yeah, I agree with you. And I love, you know, doing this alongside with you as well. And before getting myself financially educated, I had no idea what long-term care was, how important it is to people. So can you elaborate more on that and tell me the misconceptions of how you find long-term care? Yes, I believe, you know, when we think about healthcare expenses, especially at our age, you know, maybe 20s, even 30s, you know, we are probably not familiar with long-term care. But if we bring up the next slide that we have, we want to talk about the most common reason for bankruptcy. So we see here that, hey, the most common reason people are fighting for bankruptcy is medically related costs. Medically related costs is so high, we know that medical inflation is high. And we want to think about right there, the next line is how much will the average 65-year-old couple in retirement will need in medical expenses. And that's a while being, you know, more than half a million, $600,000. And, you know, a lot of us, we don't spend the time to think about that. We probably don't have the firsthand experience or have it from loved ones, but we see that this is a rising problem. It's really, really common, you know, more alongside than just, you know, the loss of a job and even divorce, which are other reasons for bankruptcy. But just think about it, just thinking about our healthcare. Our healthcare is the most expensive thing and that could drive us to such a devastating financial state. Yes, I know. And we need to be, well, as time goes on, right, we hope to be as healthy as we possibly can. But healthcare, like you said, is very important as well as long-term care. So how would you define what long-term care is for people who don't know? So, you know, before we can go into the, what long-term care is, you know, we can talk about like the misconceptions that you were addressing earlier. So in our next slide, the misconceptions of how we fund long-term care, we first automatically think Medicare. Okay, Medicare, that is your health insurance after retirement, during retirement, provided by the federal government. And, you know, that's a whole other topic. It is something that you earn through credits of working. And really, that fine line is knowing that, hey, Medicare does not cover long-term care expenses. This is including nursing facilities, specialized nursing, custodial care. And we see that, why is it that so much of us are confused that, you know, long-term care is so expensive and how are we gonna pay for it? It's not gonna be our Medicare. Is it gonna be out of pocket? And, you know, that drives us to the next slide and that's gonna be, what is long-term care? To understand long-term care, you know, this is the personal and medical, you know, help that you're gonna get when you're disabled. And this can happen at any age. And this is from experiencing different activities that you can't perform regularly. We call these the six activities of the day living. A few of those is bathing, dressing, eating and can as well as be toileting, transferring and continence. And, you know, we see that these are simple everyday things that we don't think of. Like today, you know, what did you do this morning? Well, I opened my eyes and next thing I did was roll out of bed to go use the restroom. Yeah, you know, it's just automatic. We go up and we're like, hey, okay, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go up, I'm gonna get out of bed. That's one thing. Get out of bed, maybe get on off the toilet, dress ourselves, eat ourself breakfast. These are such common everyday things, but you know, it's these little activities that can harm someone's lifestyle and that contributes to the high cost to have someone help take care of you. Yes. And I like the points that you just made earlier about Medicare not covering long-term care because if it's not covered, we know at least in Hawaii, the people who bear the risk of taking care of our elderly or our loved ones are the children. And I don't think it's talked about enough how not having long-term care or not having something in place. Financially, that could make a really big impact on the person who's caring for the loved one. So it's very interesting all the points that you made and how we take these little daily living activities during granted. And I like how you also mentioned too that it doesn't matter what age you are, right? Because I know you know some statistics you don't have to pinpoint exactly, but from what age do people usually qualify for long-term care? So without considering the age itself of when you qualify, the amount of people who are at least above 18 in long-term care is pretty high. I actually have a friend who worked at this facility in the west side of Oahu. And she was working this facility where it is all children, anyone who is below 18 years old and these are people who can't feed themselves, they can't get up on bed, they're bedridden and they need that constant care. So it was a very specialized facility. And these kids come from all different backgrounds of health. Some who are very healthy, had a life where they're doing the regular kind of things or the everyday things, but all of a sudden an accident happens, right? Whether it's a car accident, maybe an immune disease or health issues arise. And then now they're just like chronically disabled and they need the assistance to carry on. And some even were born with this need of assistance to make life a little bit easier. So that is why I strongly feel the importance of why we should prepare for our healthcare expense. Because we don't know what's gonna happen. We don't know our health, we can't promise it tomorrow. So it's best to be prepared and to learn from everyone else so that we can be able to become a little bit more wiser in a way and be more financially peace of mind. Yes. And that's truly our mission too, is to go out there and educate people to put something in place before something God forbid were to ever happen. You're right. And I know you have a personal story as well that it's in regard to long-term care. So Brandon, can you please tell us more about that? Yeah, so I do have my own story with my family and it was about taking care of our grandma there. So our grandma, she was in her 80s. She was in her prime. She was still climbing the mango trees. Like any other grandma, local grandma, she was there picking it up, climbing the trees and she was just enjoying life. She was taking me around, touring us around the island, riding the bus every day. But all of a sudden, health becomes a bigger issue. As we get older, we're close to seeing God, there's some things that we can't do. She starts to stop walking. Sometimes we need to feed her. And there comes a point where she just couldn't, she just couldn't get around easily. And we did not know what long-term care is. We didn't have the money for it. So being a big family, lots of relatives, we each took a turn. Each family, each of her grandchildren took a turn to take care of her every day of the week. And this was probably ongoing for a few years. A few years of us doing this. And I think there's a couple of things we must consider. Yes, we have our loved ones, we love them dearly and we wanna be able to help them. But what about the opportunity it takes away to make money? The opportunity to earn so that we can sustain our lifestyle. Some of us who has to now stop working, even I have a friend, he's in his mid-30s, he had to stop working because I take care of the dad. And I think this are not issues that are not common or is common. It's not like we have not heard about this. We probably see it. And some of us, you don't even know that some of our friends are doing this for their loved ones right now. Yes. No one, your story is what many of our peers and colleagues experience as well, or they know someone who is taking care of a loved one. And thank you for sharing. My mom, she worked in a dental office and she works with older patients. And she always talked about just seeing different caregivers come in taking care of the patients or it could be their loved ones. And it's interesting to see how she said that they probably didn't know that they would be taking care of their parents or their loved ones, but it just happened. And it's just a lack of financial planning. And it's not, it's no one's fault because for me too, I was completely unaware of what long-term care was and how important it was. However, I was aware of, okay, my family members, they have been taking care of my grandma before. And it's just something that's what we know, right? So Brandon, can you tell us, how do you qualify for long-term care? So that is the ways to qualify. We just need to make sure one big thing. Can you qualify and you need assistance in two of the six activities that they're living? So activities that they're living being again, bathing, eating, dressing, toileting, transferring, continents, continents being that can you control your bladder? Toileting is, can you even get on and off the toilet? So I remember I asked a couple of the things that I had to do is, I was only in sixth grade but I was already not only feeding my grandma, I was showering her, I was making sure I can help wipe her to still maintain a clean body after each meal. So that is the ways you can qualify. There's a couple other ways that people can take the time to learn about. And I think we just wanna talk about maybe the average cost. Yeah, let's hear about that. So we have the next slide here. The next slide we have is the average cost. And if we're to say this, this is, sorry, I had an error on my slide on my part. This is the cost of care itself, not Medicare. So cost of care, we can see that there's different types of facilities, different ways that we can get care from adult care center, homemaker services, home health aid, all the way to nursing home. Let's say the cheapest one. What do you see as the cheapest form of care? Cheapest form of care looks like the first one, right? Adult daycare center, and that is gonna be $17,000, but that does not mean that they are able to take care of them 24 seven. Maybe they're gonna have a shuttle come by, pick up your loved one, take care of them for a couple of hours in the day, then drop them back home, or you have to arrange your services to get them there. We also wanna consider how do people wanna get taken care of? Do people wanna go to a daycare center? If they have the power and the money to choose, what do you think is the most common option? Probably a nursing home. Yeah, a nursing home is great. That's actually one way to say, I wanna make sure I get the best quality service. I'm gonna go to a nursing home and that's one way. Another common way is, hey, I'm gonna have a homemaker come in. I'm gonna have a caregiver come to my house and I'm gonna live in the place that I lived in for X amount of years, and we're gonna pay them X amount. That's gonna be anything from like 30,000, 40,000, all depends on where we live and where we want care. Because this is a national average, but I think this does not showcase the most recent number, today's number, as well as being in Hawaii, right? Because, but we do have viewers from all over on your show and I'm glad to hear us share the campaign with so many. And that's why we wanna consider, hey, what is the starting point that we can start gauging from so that we can understand, okay, where can we work off from? I think one last point I wanna make from that slide is the last one, which is a more specialized private nursing facility or nursing room. Some of us, we can't foretell how severe our medical life is gonna be, our health. So if it's too severe, you may need that constant custodial care, that constant I, maybe you need to be in bed all day, you need to have an IV drip, so many different things to consider, and that starts to cost a lot of money. Some places, I know you are helping someone in another state and VCA was like, I believe 10,000, even more for a room in Alaska, right? And this is crazy to see how much it's gonna be. Not everyone has the amount of rooms of nursing homes available and do we have the money to even get that caregiver, to get that nursing home that we need? Yeah. And while the average cost of long-term care is insane, because for one, right, if we don't plan it advance, the most expensive I think goes up to 100,000. That's a lot for someone to pay on an annual base very suddenly, because long-term care or a person who goes on claim for long-term care, it doesn't happen gradually, it possibly can, but it can also happen suddenly. So for the provider or the loved one who wants to make sure this person is in the best situation possible, that's a lot of money to come up with, right? And then on the other hand is if we fail to plan, then it costs us our time if we become the full-time caregiver. So it's very interesting the power of knowledge and how far this can get you and how knowing more can cost you a lot less, right? I think in Hawaii, when we were discussing or having a conversation a few weeks ago, a private room is close to 130,000. Do you remember seeing something like that when we were talking about it? Yes, yes. Sometimes it's not just a matter of medicine and facilities available. Sometimes it's that can you, you're gonna be living here for a while, right? The average person in long-term care can be about three to five years. So you might be considering do I want my own room? Do I wanna have a lot of neighbors nearby? So I have people to talk with, but also it's like, do I want that nice view? Do I wanna have that care home with a great window view on the mountains? And I've seen that. I have family who works there, who works at a nursing facility up in the Heights and they see a great view. Like it's so beautiful to come in. And it's these little things that help make your life feel better, right? Making sure we can have something that your loved one will feel happy to be in and just making sure that they have the right care for them. Yes, so Brandon, what are some ways that a person can get long-term care? Or how can a person even go about trying to, you know, get that in place for themselves? Long-term care, there is the traditional long-term care insurance and as a standalone. So that is commonly, you know, companies in the marketplace in these past years and we see people will be getting this policy. But in return, they pay for it monthly, but not everyone's gonna need long-term care. A high majority of us will be in it, but not everyone will use it. And that's where it comes where, you know, standalone, they pay for it, but they don't use it, they lose the money. So that's why we see nowadays there is hybrid policies. There are protection plans, life insurances. They have riders and added benefits for the purpose of long-term care. There can even be asset leverage accounts so that they can find ways to grow their money and be able to make it last longer as maybe a lifetime long-term care. And there's so many ways that people could fund it. It's the matter of are we gonna start considering and looking at these today? Because, you know, we really know how expensive it is. So imagine how late you start planning. The later you start to plan for it and you push it back, the more money you gotta put down to prepare for this. But we see low-cost plans where you can get this as an added benefit for someone our age. And it's great. You can find a way to start this that may be like $20 a day and work your way up so that you are able to have peace of mind that, hey, if you do need long-term care, it's available for you for the next couple of years. But there are different ways that we can look at payments and funding. I like how you just mentioned that $20 a day because even $10 a day, that's $300 a month. And when we were discussing the costs of long-term care or even save your own private room in a nursing home, assuming it's $100,000 and you're staying in that nursing room for maybe five, six years, it's around $600,000. So I would say investing $10 a day towards my future is definitely worth it. And that's where it comes that, hey, this is not a user or user plan. It's that if you need it, it's available. But are there other ways that it's a little bit more flexible? Yes. And I know we'll probably hear more from you about those different plans. Definitely. Actually, this reminds me of a case that we were just talking about. We just saw on the news, one of the local news channels, they were sharing a case about their loved one. Have you seen, do you remember that case we were talking about earlier? Do you remember? Yes. A family traveled to, I believe it was Korea. Right, they were actually, so this is a family, the Ruan family. There is a daughter of a 63-year-old Hawaii man and they're facing tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical bills. And this is where they see that their dad, they were flying him to China because he hadn't seen family in a while. And it was during his layover from China to Hawaii, he was at Korea. In Korea, had an emergency during a layover in Korea which has left him stuck in the ICU overseas. And they see that he was battling pneumonia and is relying on the ventilator to breathe right now. He does have like Medicaid, but the issue is this is outside the US. So they're facing the ICU right now at a cost of about $3,000 a day. Wow. And this also doesn't consider all the other expenses that they may have just to fly him over after. I believe we're reading out flying him over could be $10,000 to make sure that he's not only getting a ticket but he has the right medical care and equipment with him. Yes. So at the end of the day, medical costs is very expensive. And what I'm hearing from you and the conversation we're having is that we never know what's gonna happen. So it's important to plan and just plan ahead, right? And I know we were gonna discuss too some personal stories that we have as well, but it's just very interesting of how money and it's sad but so true to say, but money can make a significant difference in the comfort of an individual during some rough times. And I think that goes back to our last show together where we talk about our financial foundation. It's the matter that can we properly build wealth a certain way. That, yes, we can start saving and investing in the long run for our future, but if you don't take the time to prioritize the proper protection and event of health, sickness, premature death, and even just looking at how can I handle my debts? Make sure I get that to zero. Make sure I have enough savings, emergency fund because we just need to know that, hey, long-term care is gonna cover the long-term services but what are you gonna cover right away? Or do we have that savings available? Do we have money readily available in different places so that we can leverage our accounts and be able to supplement our lifestyle? So I thank you again, she enough for having me here and I'm glad that we could talk about the long-term care and respect to being the weirdest month for November. And these are some tough conversations to have at times. This isn't the most sexiest topic in the world, but it is inevitable and it's something that could greatly affect someone in our life and someone you may know, maybe a friend or a colleague, some of their loved ones in their life. And I know personally for me, my family was personally affected with something very sudden and tragic which had happened to my sister. And I'm very grateful for the knowledge and education that was given to our family because when my sister was in a very intense situation where she needed intense care, the doctor told us it's gonna be very expensive. And I was so, so grateful that my mom said, it's okay, we can handle any costs that comes our way because my mom planned in advance for us. So I'm sure my mom, when she did go ahead and plan in advance, it wasn't because she expected anything to happen but just knowing why it's important to plan ahead. So, you know, I'm very, very grateful for that. And if anything, and this whole entire conversation and topic and national long-term care awareness month, it has taught me that it can happen to anyone. Well, thank you so much, Brandon, for being on our show. I really, really appreciate your time, your knowledge and always be willing to have, you know, these tough conversations. Oh, thank you, Shayna. Thank you for having me on your show. Yes, thank you so much. I hope to see you all at the next episode of Money Talks. I'm Shayna Park, a Gen Z inspiring lives and liberties. Thank you.