They're becoming American.

Ahhh come on, Subby.

Assimilation complete.

Ha. Good. Hopefully their nurse will be some methed out yokel from backwoods Alabama, stealing their gilded rosaries for cigarette money.

StrikitRich: Ding Ding Ding

Came for the Breaking Bad reference, leaving satisified

ChipNASA: [dba-oracle.com image 488x352]

The guy on the right is a dead ringer for our IT guy.

What's the over-under on Latinos no longer being considered a quasi-foreign separate "race" and them just being made fun of like Italian-Americans?

/EYYYYYYYYY, I smacka you face!

My aunt had to go into a nursing home. At the time, she had great insurance and her and her late husband had invested in annuities which gave her a worth of about $750,000 plus she owned her own home.

The first nursing home almost killed her with abusive staff. We got her out of there and called in the DCF. They raised hell and everyone was fired and a whole new crew installed.

The second home was assisted living and she was there several years in a place that was absolutely wonderful and built to resemble something like a manor house. Their dining room was set up like those you see in fine dining establishments and they even had wait staff in white shirts and black trousers and skirts.

However, she grew too infirm to remain there and was transferred to a full care nursing home, one which has been around for ages, was built back in the early 50's but has been well kept and maintained. The staff is excellent also. The rooms, however, are tiny and need to hold two patients. The place looks like an institution.

The latter place costs $6000 a month. The nicer assisted living facility cost $3000.

Now, her annuities are gone, she sold her house, her savings are gone, her health insurance has refused to cover all of the costs and she is now on Medicare and Medicaid.

Getting old and infirm is a costly thing. She had planned on giving her relatives a nice inheritance upon her death, but now that's long gone. Then again, she's in dementia so she doesn't realize it.

However, she is being well taken care of.

When I visit, I walk down those old style halls, go into her room which is about half the size of the one she had all to herself at the assisted living facility and has another person in it, look at the big but Spartan dining room and decided if I EVER have to go to such a place, I'll blow my head off first.

Luckily, she's non compos mentis [loony] and not that aware of her surroundings.

I take care of my disabled 85 year old Mother and it's a 24/7 job. I've had to get DFHS to provide her with a nursing assistant for a couple of hours a day, several days a week. Mainly to give ME a little rest. I'm disabled and get to try and handle that as well as take care of her. She's terrified of nursing homes so I promised I'd never put her in one.

Luckily, my father was a Postman and joined the Union plus got great Postal Insurance which pays for the majority of her care along with Medicare/Medicaid. Everything transferred to her upon his death years ago.

HOWEVER, years ago, you had a primary physician who took care of you, referring you to specialists only now and then. She has a primary -- and about 5 secondary's along with so many 'as needed' specialists that I lost track of them all.

Her record keeping, which I do, gets complicated at times.

I really admire cultures that respect their elders that much. South America, Asia, and I think parts of Africa seem to have far more admiration for their parents and grandparents than "the West".
The nuclear family with the dad working his single job and the mom staying home to raise the kids really seems like a dream in this age.

Posh Naranek: antron: [i49.tinypic.com image 600x375]

Is that real?

In that Stephen Hawking is sadly almost completely paralyzed and Obama is leaning in to talk to him, yes.

God-is-a-Taco:
The nuclear family with the dad working his single job and the mom staying home to raise the kids really seems like a dream in this age.
.

Err, I forgot the previous sentence. It's shameful in the developed world for two adults to possibly work multiple jobs to not reach the poverty level. What exactly caused this shift?