Finding a solution to home healthcare

Re “Caring is a man’s job too,” Column One, Nov. 27

It should hardly be surprising that men are providing more home care-giving than ever before. Illness and disability are equal opportunity factors in family life. My hope, and the hope of many in long-term care, is that the increased involvement of men as primary caregivers will lead to a new urgency and solutions for care giving.

Families want and need to care for their own, and community-based services are often best for the person who needs care. Unfortunately, we discriminate in this nation by the disease or condition you are unlucky enough to get. Your regular health insurance will pay for hospital care, surgery or chemotherapy. But if you get Alzheimer’s disease or become simply too frail to live alone, you must “spend down” nearly every penny saved for a lifetime or purchase a prohibitively expensive long-term care policy years in advance of your needed care.

Perhaps the legislators, who are mostly male, and the caregivers, who are now increasingly male, have a magic solution to this problem. Female voters, caregivers and care receivers will applaud their involvement.

JEAN RUECKER

Simi Valley