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Comment by massysett | Hacker News Reader

This is ridiculous because a nursing home and the Holiday Inn are not remotely comparable. A nursing home is for people who can't take care of themselves. They have nursing staff available 24 hours a day. They assist people with going to the bathroom, eating, taking medicines, etc. A Holiday Inn does none of that.

Clearly this man is capable of taking care of himself, which is great. He doesn't even need assisted living. He would fare just fine in a regular retirement community or just in a regular apartment, so the question is not how a Holiday Inn compares to a nursing home. It's how a Holiday Inn compares to an apartment.

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Eh, it seems like a nice solution for people in a middle case. If you aren't in bad enough shape to need constant medical attention, but aren't quite up for the cleaning and maintenance requirements of a regular apartment, you can live pretty nicely and not spend too much money.

Suppose it also helps if you only really want to have a suitcase or two worth of possessions.

I suppose a serviced apartment would make more sense in that case.

I would think hiring a cleaning person (and handyman maybe?) would be cheaper

- Nursing home (NH) is a much higher level of care and if you need it then living in a hotel is not an option. Medicare covers NH so it may be cheaper overall to go there than live in an apartment with your own nursing staff. - Assisted living facilities are closer to living in a hotel and they get (partially?) covered by Medicaid in some states. Prices vary so I don't know how they would compare directly though. One theme that I see more often lately is seniors transferring their assets to their (grand)kids so that they look poor on paper so that they qualify for low cost assisted living/ Medicare and then cost is not a consideration any more.

Medicaid is last resort, you can’t take care of yourself, nursing home where your social security payment is taken in full to offset the cost to the government.

Assisted living could be covered by Medicaid but there’s usually a waiting list of years for that. Also there is a limit to their care before they send you to a nursing home.

In either case Medicare won’t cover the cost of assisted living, but it will cover some of the cost for inhome care.

Seniors should be careful about asset transfers — Medicaid has a five year lookback period and can claw back assets from family members.

Yeah, he could live even cheaper by, you know, buying a house and living in it.

Then you have to worry about maintenance and upkeep, utilities, taxes, cleaning, etc. He also wouldn’t get the free breakfast and the optionality of moving from place to place.

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