The "Home"

So there really isn't any such thing as inheritance for the middle class anymore. People pay into an insurance plan all their life or have social security benefits or what have you. Then they go into the home for the first time. Perhaps they are rehabilitating after an accident ( a broken bone a surgical repair) and if they spend any length of time in the facility they will probably use up their life time benefits. That is to say after a point the insurance company says that's all we are paying for by way of assisted living or total care living.

So then they take your savings. Every last penny. And you wouldn't believe how fast that goes. Even the most frugal of the great depression survivors are out of money after a couple years. So then you are on the state / federal dime and they cut down the benefits / care you received to the bare minimum. No private room or private phone. Television of the most basic variety but possibly only in the group areas, if at that point you are willing or able to leave your bed.

Then after you die any outstanding bills for your care will be paid out of your "estate."

Now your active and self reliant can sometimes, provided they don't go crazy, keep going and living if not by themselves, then with family right up until almost the very end. But there are a lot of people who tend to cave when the pain starts to come. They don't want to exercise after a broken bone because it hurts too much. Or perhaps they don't even want to get out of bed or their chair. They trade in their canes for walkers then the walkers for wheel chairs. The path of least resistance.

And then it is death by stages over time. Slow, painful and terrible for not only themselves but for their families whose memories of their loved ones will forever be tainted by the vision of feebleness.

This memory then becomes your inheritance. The money is all spent. The house, if they owned one, was sold and if they rented, then there was no equity to speak of in the first place, the furniture and appliances make their way to the landfill, too worn out after decades of use to be of value. The pictures and mementos either get boxed up and put away in some one else's home or tossed out by people who see no relevance to them. Life insurance pays for the burial. In 99 years your rent on the plot is up and the yard is free to do whatever they will with whatever is left of your remains. Maybe a bit of bone and some dust.

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